Notes: The import of this Tequila is the result of a fortuitous forced landing of a airplane – hence the name. In 1939 Anton Branif was flying from Veracruz to San Blas with a cargo of goods in a 5-AT Trimotor when he was forced down by bad weather and landed on a dirt road in Jalisco near the distillery. During his sojourn there when taking a break from repairing his plane he toured the Hacienda and distillery and of course tried the tequila. Being impressed with the tequila and sensing a business opportunity he started regular flights to there to buy and import the tequila to other countries.

They use a number of processes that cost more to do but yield an excellent product First is the use of older more mature agave (8-10 years)than others use (mostly 6-7 year olds) and less intensive planting to give the plants more nutrients and sun.They use century old masonry ovens and slowly roast the pinãs. Some of their rivals use live steam or huge steel ovens that look more like lumber drying kilns and cook much faster. The steel ovens don’t yield the same results. Aeroplano also uses a proprietary yeast, double distillation in small batch pot stills using only the center cuts, and careful blending by their Maestro Tequilero to make a excellent product.

This is the youngest expression of this particular line. The other being Aeroplano Reposado aged from 3 to 11 months in white oak barrels in a cool dark cellar .

Appearance: Crystal clear, lovely body. On swirling, it leaves a very light coating on the glass with tears and legs forming slowly.

First Impression: Has a good tequila smell. It has all the right elements right at the start: savory, sage, citrusy lime, pineapple, at first.

Taste: Sweet start with savory notes,then citrus notes and brine. Dry smooth finish with fresh ground black pepper notes.

Drinks: Wonderful margaritas, be sure to use fresh juice and a decent orange curacao (Combier, Senior, Cointreau etc,) – it only costs about 10 to 25 cents more per drink and makes a huge difference over that cheap chemical dross some people try to sell as curacao. It may well become the house tequila for mixing as it beats anything else for a quality to price ratio and certainly cheap enough to use in quantity.

Cigars: A good mild cigar Davidoff or Macanudo- natural wrapper.

Bottle:Square clear glass with planed off edges. Nice looking multicolored label with a drawing of a trimotor plane on it. Distinguished from it’s older sibling by blue and silver highlights on the label. Black plastic neckwrap and screwcap.

Final Thoughts: While I am usually a highland tequila fan ( I find the lowland varieties not as interesting for the most part) that coupled with the fact it costs less than a lot of really bad tequila brands made me have minimal expectations. I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong. I found Aeroplano to be a nice, subtle, and smooth tequila. While not hugely complex, it is authentic, well made and a steal at the price. Their artisanally made tequila is proof that quality ingredients and attention to detail yield a superior product that doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. Highly recommended and compared to other tequilas in their price range ( the one where you usually feel quite poisoned after drinking any in quantity afterwards) it is immensely better.

Web site: http://www.aeroplanotequila.com

Minimal website – no photos or information about the distillery or production. Just the founding story and pictures of bottles.