This event is free and open to the public!
No RSVP required.
Join us at Las Almas Rotas on May 4 at 5pm to celebrate the launch of Tequila Wars: José Cuervo and the Bloody Struggle for the Spirit of Mexico by Ted Genoway.
The author will be with us and signed copies will be available!
A revelatory history of the vast tequila empire born from the fires of the Mexican Revolution.
At the dawn of the twentieth century, José Cuervo inherited his family’s humble distillery, La Rojeña, in the Tequila Valley. Within a decade, he had transformed it into a complex national enterprise that would become Mexico’s leading producer of tequila. Cuervo grew his kingdom of agave by acquiring thousands of acres of estates throughout the valley; he brought electricity and a railroad line to Tequila, so he could reach drinkers across the country. But when the Mexican Revolution erupted, a charge of treason and a death threat against him by Pancho Villa forced Cuervo to flee. His disappearance turned him into an obscure, shadowy historical figure—despite having one of the most famous names in Mexican history.
In Tequila Wars, award-winning author Ted Genoways restores Cuervo to his place as a key player in Mexico’s formative period. Before the revolution, Cuervo’s acclaim spread worldwide, and once war broke out, Cuervo remained an impresario, kingmaker, and cultural force. In the face of his own government’s corruption and the nationalism of his northern neighbors, Cuervo reached American drinkers by establishing Mexico’s covert form of cross-border commerce with the United States. As the largest and most important distilleries in the Tequila Valley recognized the threat posed by Mexico’s unraveling, Cuervo also lobbied for suspending normal competition in favor of “a union of tequila makers”—what would become the first Mexican cartel.
With extensive original research, including access to the secret archives of the Cuervo and Sauza families, Genoways follows the violent, unpredictable, and hugely profitable world of tequila through the story of its most successful maker. The first biography of Cuervo, Tequila Wars uncovers the history of the man who would forever change not only the business of tequila, but international relations between Mexico and the United States.
Ted Genoways
is a two-time James Beard Award winner and the author of six books, including Tequila Wars and This Blessed Earth. He is a senior editor at the Food & Environment Reporting Network and a President’s Professor at the University of Tulsa, where he edits Switchyard.
“The comprehensive story of a liquor empire built during a pivotal period in Mexican history… This rich, edifying book remedies a striking gap in the historical record.”
“Ted Genoways is one of the most intoxicating scribes in the country today. If he can knock you out with his prose, imagine what he can do with an unlimited flow of tequila! This is the best kind of history book—one that reveals astonishments, surprises and even mythology about something we think we know so well. After you read this book, every sip of tequila will put you back on the road with Ted, sharing the mystery, history and delight of this Spirit of Mexico. I will travel anywhere with him.”