Siete Leguas de Antaño Extra Añejo Tequila

About Tequila Siete Leguas

As the Mexican Revolutionary War began in 1910, José Doroteo Arango Arámbula — commonly referred to as Pancho Villa — joined the pro-democracy forces of Francisco Madero, and eventually rose through the ranks to become one of the country's most prominent generals. Between 1910 and 1914, Villa fought in nine major skirmishes, all of them successful. He was a masterful tactician — the strategies Villa leveraged during the war were studied by the United States Army — and his image was eventually immortalized with that of his favorite horse, 7 Leguas (Seven Leagues).

Today, nearly a century after his death in 1923, Don Ignacio Gonzales Vargas pays tribute to the Mexican hero with Tequila 7 Leguas. Vargas's estate, which is situated in the Jalisco region of Mexico, is home to a tiny farm that specializes in the growth and maturation of blue weber agave.

After the estate-grown agave have matured for nearly a decade, they are harvested by expert jimadors, who test each batch of agave in order to ensure that the sugar content of the piñas — the heart of the agave plant — is enough to produce a rich and flavorful tequila. Then, the piñas are slowly cooked in masonry ovens under the watchful eye of a stoker. The heat from the ovens softens the fibers of the piñas, and caramelizes their natural sugars. The cooked piñas are then crushed under the weight of a traditional stone wheel that is pulled by a mule, and the remaining agave juice is fermented in stainless steel fermentation tanks using a unique strain of yeast developed specifically for the distillation of tequila. Following fermentation, the agave wash is twice distilled through copper-pot stills.