Spirit Of the Week: Tequila Ocho Extra Añejo 2021
Highland agave maestros celebrate their first super-aged spirit in years with an oak-kissed expression.
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Founded in 2008 by two men dedicated to the nuanced art of blue agave, Tequila Ocho was built upon a dedication to revealing the full potential of the plant’s terroir.
Already running his family’s La Alteña distillery at the time, which makes such excellent tequilas as El Tesoro and Tapatio, third-generation Maestro Tequilero and fifth-generation agave farmer Carlos Camarena joined forces with restaurateur Tomas Estes for this new effort.
Estes himself is credited with galvanizing tequila throughout Europe via his beloved Café Pacifico restaurant in Amsterdam, and he was appointed as Europe’s first official Tequila Ambassador by the Mexican National Tequila Chamber before his passing in 2021.
What makes Tequila Ocho unique is its diligent focus on terroir. Camarena and Estes’ approach is simple yet revolutionary: Each batch of Tequila Ocho is crafted from agave sourced from a single field, making it possible to trace the unique flavor profile back to its exact origin.
This “single estate” approach means every bottle, whether Plata, Reposado, Añejo, Extra Añejo or Puntas, proudly notes the specific field where the agaves were grown, reinforcing the authenticity and precision behind every expression.
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This past holiday Tequila Ocho celebrated the new year with their first Extra Añejo expression since 2022 and its first since opening their gleaming new Los Alambiques distillery in Arandas, in the Highlands of Jalisco. (It should be noted Carlos no longer runs La Alteña, having passed control and the Maestro Tequilero title to his sister, Jenny, while he focuses on Ocho.)
As a degreed agronomist adding to his family’s long history growing agave, Camarena’s knowledge as an agavero is second to none; he takes great pride in knowing precisely when a field’s plants are ready to harvest. For this Extra Añejo 2021, Ocho used only overripe agaves from his La Ladera plot.
Known as “The Hillside,” La Ladera’s altitude of nearly 7,000-feet and rocky soil means smaller piñas, yet robust with higher sugar content due to the minerality and stress of the growth conditions. It’s why Camarena chose this field to yield his prized Extra Añejo.
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After roasting in brick ovens, open-air fermenting in wooden tanks and distilling in copper stills, the Blanco tequila matured for a full three years in ex-American whiskey barrels that have also held tequila in the past, which according to Camarena resulted in a liquid “kissed by the oak” yet retaining the maximum agave flavor possible in an Extra Añejo.
Not only the first Extra Añejo from the Los Alambiques distillery, this is also the first packaged in the brand’s new glass bottles —a global makeover launched this summer to unite Ocho’s branding across Mexico, America and Europe. With rustic “fingerprinting” textured paper and an intricately embossed reddish glass bottle, the elegant new packaging is made to evoke the rich clay soil of Los Altos, tipping the sombrero to the brand’s noted single estate concept.
Proofed down to 40 percent ABV (80-proof) with water from their estate’s springs, only some 4,000 bottles of Tequila Ocho Extra Añejo 2021 are available for its $250 SRP.
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