In The News

Reprinted with permision from Guadalajara Reporter, Sept 29, 2007

Tequila & a journey of self discovery

Photograph by : J. Bender

After delving deep into his family tree in Jalisco, U.S.-born David Ruiz discovered just how much tequila and its history meant to him.

Story by : JACOB BENDER
For most Americans, tequila is that Mexican liquor you mix with your margarita. For the more knowledgeable, it is the distilled juices of a blue agave plant produced specifically in Jalisco and a select few adjacent regions.
But for tequila expert David Ruiz, Mexico’s celebrated drink is the window into his roots, his heritage and his place in the world.
“I think I was always a tequila connoisseur, and just didn’t know it,” says Ruiz, a Californian who moved to Guadalajara 18 months ago after suffering what he calls “Silicon Valley burnout.”
Born and raised in the San Francisco bay area, Ruiz and his family have been making regular annual trips to their ancestral home in rural Jalisco since 1962. Much of his extended family still lives in and around the small town of El Arenal, and he’s somehow related to almost everyone in the close-knit community.
El Arenal is located in the Tequila Valley, a short hop from the town of Tequila and smack in the heart of the approved region where the drink is exclusively produced. Tequila forms the heart of the town’s economy, and it was through his many visits there that Ruiz developed his great familiarity with the spirit.
Several years ago, Ruiz abandoned his career as an industrial engineer and began working as a business consultant for U.S. companies seeking to invest in the tequila sector in Mexico. He now gives tequila tours, trains bartenders, and certifies tequila taverns. He gained dual U.S.-Mexican citizenship five years ago, a move that has facilitated his job.
But Ruiz’s path back to Mexico began long before he made his career switch, and it was a life-altering experience that awakened his dormant fascination with tequila.
“It all changes when you have kids,” says Ruiz, “You begin to wonder what sort of heritage you have to leave them. You begin to wonder who you are.”
Thus in the 1970s, with the birth of his first children, Ruiz began a detailed search into his family history. The search has helped shape his self image and reinforced what tequila means to him.
Three Ruizes, he discovered, crossed the Atlantic with Columbus and one was part of the Spanish expedition that settled in what is now Jalisco. This Ruiz helped set up the hacienda system here, including the stately home in El Aranal – now unfortunately abandoned – that was owned by his ancestors.
The Spanish also brought along their distillation equipment, with which they began making their own alcoholic beverages. Contrary to some historians, Ruiz believes they may have begun distilling tequila even then.
“The first tequila production was reported in 1600s, but what that really means was that was when the first person was caught doing it,” explains Ruiz. “People hid their production amounts so that they didn’t have to pay taxes to the Spanish crown.
As Ruiz tells it, centuries before tequila achieved international notoriety, Ruiz’s ancestors were producing the liquor in their hacienda.
“I have a theory, I can’t prove it yet, but I believe that there were already tequila taverns here as early as the mid 1500s.”
The unrest created by the anti-Catholic Cristero War of the 1920s caused Ruiz’s grandparents to flee to the United States, where they eventually settled in San Francisco bay area. But prohibition drove many American liquor enthusiasts back south of the border, where they discovered the pleasures of tequila. Thus began the drink’s immortal rise to international notoriety.
Tequila is not just a simple drink for Ruiz. For him, it is his history, his heritage and his legacy. When he drinks it, he tastes not just distilled blue agave but the spirit of his ancestors.
“Most people go on a tour to understand tequila,” says Ruiz, “I feel you need to get into the history and the culture to truly appreciate it.”