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The history of the production of tequila is inexorably linked to three cultures: the Aztecs, the Spanish, and the North African Moors.

Picture yourself as one of the conquistadors accompanying Hernan Cortez on his mission to conquer the land now known as Mexico and claim it for King Carlos V of Spain. The year is 1519. The Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan lays before you. While there, you notice the high priests imbibing a drink during their religious ceremonies and rituals.

They call this drink pulque, or "a gift from the gods." You observe how the native inhabitants cut down a plant that looks a lot like a spiny succulent pineapple. They call this a maquey plant. (This genus is given the botanical name agave by Carl Linnaeus in 1756. It is also known as the century plant.) They cut off the spiny top and slowly roast the bola or bulb at the plant's base in coals for days. Several more days pass before they extract the fermented juices from the bulb. The drink is much like beer or wine. Your culture has long used the process of distillation which your forebears learned from the Moors of North Africa when they controlled Andalucia, Espana. Part of your ship's cargo included distilling pots. Someone in your party uses a pot to distill the native pulque into an even purer drink, something called mezcal. Mezcal becomes the first drink distilled on the continent of North America.

After conquering the Aztecs, your army moves farther north and encounters a tribe from Amatitlan (present day Jalisco) called the Tiquilas. They live in the shadow of a volcano in a village called Tiquitlan. A different kind of agave plant grows here, a blue agave plant seemingly unable to grow anywhere else but in this rich volcanic soil. The juices from this plant can be distilled into something even more potent than mezcal, something that comes to be known as tequila.

Skip ahead to 1656. The town of Tequila is established and becomes a center for the production of the twice, sometimes triple distilled, spirit. About that same time, Doctor Jeronimo Hernandez cites the medicinal usages of tequila, including rubbing tequila over rheumatic joints.

In 1758, the father of Jose Guadalupe Cuervo establishes his La Taberna de Cuervo. This tavern becomes the first Mexican distillery to be legally registered. In 1795, by royal grant Cuervo is given land to grow agave plants and rights to distill and sell mezcal wine. The name Cuervo becomes linked with the production of tequila in the following century,

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