Colorado Agave Collective

April is coming, and that means it’s time for the Colorado Agave Collective’s Anniversary Party. Come out and join us in celebrating 2 years of the only monthly agave spirit educational blind tasting platform in the world!

Monday, April 6th
Desert Social
1312 S Broadway
Doors open at 5:30 pm
Event runs 6:00 - 8:00 pm
$40 cash entry with a valid 21+ ID

Entry includes:
-1 veladora glass to use for the night and take home
-Unlimited .5 oz pours from a 50+ bottle line-up of agave spirits
-Free SWAG while it lasts
-Music
-Good times
*A limited range of cocktails, using any spirit in the lineup you choose, will be available for purchase
*A food truck will be outside offering food for purchase

**The entire event is CASH ONLY!**

Disclaimers:
-This will be a consumption-heavy event, and there is no parking lot. Do not drink and drive. Please use ride-sharing apps, taxi services, or arrange to be dropped off and picked up.
-We reserve the right to cut off and/or remove any attendees at any time without refund.
-Attendees are solely responsible for their own actions: by attending this event, you agree to hold harmless Desert Social, Ni Tuyo, Colorado Agave Collective, and any and all people and properties associated with the companies listed in the event of an incident.

On Wednesday, March 18th, Ni Tuyo and the Colorado Agave Collective will host the founder of Santanera, Pablo Lara, for a tasting and master class on the brand.

Your entry to the event is purchasing a 50% off “Mezcal Wednesday” flight of 4 - 1 ounce pours of Santanera’s exceptionally high quality tequilas and will include light appetizers.

4:00 – 4:45 pm Meet & greet
4:45 – 5:30 pm Lecture
5:30 – 5:45 pm Transition to dining service

We encourage you to stick around, grab a table for dinner, and catch the tail end of happy hour.

The Colorado Agave Collective has featured Santanera in 2 of our blind-tasting events: the first time in a lineup of the CAC choosing our favorite readily accessible bottle, and the second when we highlighted brands doing exceptional things in the name of pollinators and sustainability.

Fun fact - our very own was stung in the shin by a scorpion while walking one of Santanera’s organic agave plots with the company’s Director of Agriculture. 🦂

Seating is limited to 35, sign up at the link in our bio or by visiting https://tables.toasttab.com/nituyo/experience/pablo-lara-casa-santanera

agave
tequila

For our March event, we explored agave spirits from around the world

NOCO Distilling Tokylia, US
This spirit is produced in Colorado using Blue Weber Agave. Syrup extracted from agave grown in the Highlands of Jalisco is imported and undergoes a 5-week sour-mash fermentation with a European-style yeast. It’s then triple distilled in copper pots and cut with Rocky Mountain water filtered through a reverse-osmosis system. The sour mash process is from the first batch of agave spirits they produced, some of which was used to inoculate the new batch to keep the historical fruit esters.

Aqara Agave de los Andes, Peru
10 year old Americana Expansa Gentry and Cordillerensis agave harvested in the Andes, cut into 1-2 inch cubes, and cooked in a stainless mash tun with steam jackets providing indirect heat. It’s fermented with dry yeast and agave fibers in stainless tanks for 72 hours, utilizing both aerobic and anaerobic fermentation. Then it’s double distilled in small copper pots and rested briefly before bottling.

Inzalo Batch 1 Agave Spirit, South Africa
A small area of the Karoo Desert is the only place on earth you find the “Red Agave” used in this spirit - Agave Americana whose pencas have turned red so extra pigmentation can help it survive extreme unrelenting sun and drought. Agaves are slowly cooked at low temperature in stainless steam ovens. A gentle extraction is performed using a press, similar to that what’s often used in wine production. Fermentation uses spring water and wild yeast. Distillation happens in a small copper pot that feeds a small copper column still.

Chawar Blanco, Ecuador
Chawar is produced by an all-woman co-op from the sap of 10-15 year old Agave Americana var. Andina or Penco is grown at an elevation in the Andean Highlands. A live pina is cut open, the sap pools naturally and can be harvested 2-3 times daily, for 3-4 months at a time. This process keeps the plant alive for a longer time and does not require cooking to convert starches to sugar. The sap is naturally fermented and then distilled in small stainless pot stills.

Monday, March 2nd Event Details:
Destilado de Agave - Uncertified and Unrestricted

Come get nerdy with us and try some agave spirits that you have never had before, and are extremely unlikely to ever have again. For most, this event will be a once in a lifetime opportunity! Due to the rarity and difficulty of obtaining some of these spirits, seating will be limited so get your RSVPs in.

This month we’re going to blind taste through uncertified agave spirts that have no denomination of origin rules or regulations that need to be adhered to. Agaves are grown around the world and it’s not just Mexico producing spirits from them. We will also be discussing some of the pros and cons of Denomination of Origins.

We created Colorado Agave Collective’s First Monday Events to be a first-of-its-kind concept: consumer-driven, palate-focused, educational, donation-based, agave spirit blind tastings, open to the public, and held on the First Monday of every month. For these events, we remove the commercialization from education while doing it bigger, better, and different. We do not participate in pay-to-play, meaning brands can not buy their way into the events or the lineups. We are not a tequila club, and these events are not the typical tequila club tasting experience.

Click the link in our bio or visit coloradoagavecollective.com/links to register.

Monday, March 2nd Event Details:
Destilado de Agave - Uncertified and Unrestricted

Come get nerdy with us and try some agave spirits that you have never had before, and are extremely unlikely to ever have again. For most, this event will be a once in a lifetime opportunity! Due to the rarity and difficulty of obtaining some of these spirits, seating will be limited so get your RSVPs in.

This month we’re going to blind taste through uncertified agave spirts that have no denomination of origin rules or regulations that need to be adhered to. Agaves are grown around the world and it’s not just Mexico producing spirits from them.

We created Colorado Agave Collective’s First Monday Events to be a first-of-its-kind concept: consumer-driven, palate-focused, educational, donation-based, agave spirit blind tastings, open to the public, and held on the First Monday of every month. For these events, we remove the commercialization from education while doing it bigger, better, and different. We do not participate in pay-to-play, meaning brands can not buy their way into the events or the lineups. We are not a tequila club, and these events are not the typical tequila club tasting experience.

Click the link in our bio or visit coloradoagavecollective.com/links to register.

This week ’s Mezcal Wednesday was half off pours of Berta Vasquez batches! She's one of the best to ever do it!

del.sol Madrecuishe
Destilado con te de Limon (Angustafolia distilled with Lemongrass)
Arroqueno
Ensamble
Telextate

The Arroqueno was a standout!

There's are 2 places on this planet where you can get a pour of private batch of .del.sol Espadin Puntas (75.1% abv), high proof blanco (54% abv), and Victor Ramos Tabola Capon (48.3% abv). The first is in Golden Colorado and the other is ’s condo in downtown Demver.

This is world class agave!

While in South Africa, Ryan had the opportunity to sit down with Jonathan Roche, the distiller of Rocco Torro.

Rocco Torro is a South African agave spirit produced at its own distillery in Graaff-Reinet, in the Great Karoo. This region is the heart of African agave. Rocco Torro has their own agave fields where they grow African agave Americana. Taking up to 20 years to mature in the mineral-rich soils of the Karoo Desert, the hand-harvested agave pinas can weigh around 440 lbs [200 kg] each! The agaves are slow-cooked for 72 hours in a low-pressure direct-steam autoclave to break down complex sugars into simpler fermentable ones. For extraction, the cooked agave is run through a mechanical shredder and then a basket press. Fermentation takes between 5–7 days in stainless tanks with natural yeast added. Once fermentation is complete, it’s double-distilled in a stainless pot still with a copper coil. Some batches are barrel aged in French or American oak. The finally step is proofing it down with local spring water, before it’s bottled on site.

For our February event we dove into how each step of agave spirit production can drastically change the flavor profile and why.

This was the biggest round table discussion yet, nearly everyone contributed something they tasted that may have been influenced by production methods. As well as asking amazing questions, the discussion turned to analyzing how experience from other industry’s such as Beer Production, Mezcal and engineering can help bridge the gap between the palate and production.

These are just some of the common variables.
Cooking: Earthen pit, stone oven, adode oven, autoclave
Extraction:
Conoa, tahona, shredder, roller mill, Diffuser
Fermentation:
Open/ losed, yeast, rawhide, stone, wood, steel, plastic, concrete, with/without fiber, water source
Distillation: Tree trunk, clay, copper, steel, refrescadora, column, pot, number of distillation.

For this first pair in the tasting we chose:
Tapatio Blanco & El Tesoro Blanco.

They are both produced by the same pwople at La Altena (NOM1139) using brick oven cooked agave, that is tahona ground, open air fermwnted in wood, and distilled with fiber in copper. The main variables are that Tapatio blends roller mill and tahona extraction, and El Tesoro distills to proof wothout dillution.

The second pair we chose Arette Blanco & Arette Artesanal Suave Blanco.

They are both produced by the same people at El Llano (NOM1109) using roller mill extraction, closed fermentation, and stainless stills with copper coils. The main variables is that the standard Blanco uses a low pressure autoclave for cooking and stainless steel fermentation tanks, and the Suave Blanco uses a brick oven for cooking and concrete fermentation tanks.

We’ll see you on the first Monday of next month!

Come get nerdy with us!

Monday, February 2nd Event Details:
It’s time to test your palate, or to sip and enjoy, whatever works for you.

This month, there are no clues, no hints, and no event title telling you what the focus will be. This month, we’re limiting variables in the tasting lineup. Will you be able to nail down the variable? Let’s be realistic, probably not, but don’t get intimidated, we’re going to explain everything at the end. This, and every one of our events, is relevant to anyone interested in agave spirits. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or a newcomer, this event is for you.

We created Colorado Agave Collective’s First Monday Events to be a first-of-its-kind concept: consumer-driven, palate-focused, educational, donation-based, agave spirit blind tastings, open to the public, and held on the First Monday of every month. For these events, we remove the commercialization from education while doing it bigger, better, and different. We do not participate in pay-to-play, meaning brands can not buy their way into the events or the lineups. We are not a tequila club, and these events are not the typical tequila club tasting experience.

Click the link in our bio or visit coloradoagavecollective.com/links to register.

If you watched the interview with Greg from Finca 18, we promised to share some pictures of their stunning Puerto Vallarta distillery. Here you go!