Maestro tequilero Enrique de Colsa has pushed the boundaries of conventional cask ageing for The Misplaced Explorer’s second small batch Tequila launch.
The Misplaced Explorer Tequila Reposado has been formed by means of a singular blended resting course of that has utilised Sauternes wine casks, Pedro Ximénez Sherry casks and Bourbon barrels, and is a primary for the class.
Talking completely to The Spirits Enterprise, the previous grasp distiller for Don Julio shares what led him to decide on these barrel varieties for this expression, and the way working with a small distillery resembling The Misplaced Explorer has allowed him to take care of full management over the method from begin to end, and make a Tequila he believes in.
“I met David [de Rothschild, founder of The Lost Explorer] about three years in the past in Oaxaca,” he shares. Whereas the assembly was “for advisory causes”, by the top of their dinner, de Rothschild had proposed they make a Tequila collectively.
“He stated: ‘You will make Tequila, why don’t we make it collectively? Include us, come to our model,” de Colsa continues.
“My plan at the moment was to make a Tequila for myself, utilizing my data, utilizing my contacts, utilizing my greater than 30 years’ expertise working with the most important manufacturers on the earth. I stated: ‘OK, let’s attempt to do it collectively.’”
De Colsa’s precedence when signing on to the mission was to have the ability to management every little thing within the Tequila-making course of, from selecting the yeast selection (Champagne) by means of to the double distillation and the ageing, and he knew having this whole autonomy was out there to him with The Misplaced Explorer.
This allowed him to be extra experimental, and method crafting this reposado in a manner that has not been completed earlier than: through multi-cask ageing.
Prior to now, de Colsa says his major barrel selection has at all times been ex-whiskey casks, as Bourbon is the usual in Tequila ageing, with about 70%-80% of Tequilas aged utilizing ex-Bourbon barrels.
Bourbon, he says, helps traditional cooked agave’s sweetness, honey and rounded notes with out erasing the agave core. Subsequently, to protect the identification of Tequila, he selected to maintain this component inside his recipe to take care of shopper familiarity.
However, he says: “I wished to make one thing new – one thing that isn’t frequent.”
He began to trial a number of barrels he imported from the US and Europe, in addition to a number of sourced from throughout Mexico. This led to the trial of 11 totally different cask varieties, with totally different woods and totally different former contents, together with Sherry and different wine varieties he had by no means labored with earlier than.
He bought two barrels of every kind and reduce them all the way down to convert them into three 20-litre barrels of every to permit him to speed up the ageing course of and witness how every cask behaved along with his Tequila. Subsequently, his house grew to become a type of laboratory, with a number of barrels operating concurrently for a couple of yr to permit him to carefully assess all variables.
All through, his method was methodical, experimental, and centered on preserving agave character whereas including complexity from the wooden.
For every of the 11 cask sorts, he created a timeline of flavour improvement, ageing, and testing each month for as much as 11 months – the restrict earlier than a Tequila turns into an añejo. This gave him a matrix of cask kind versus time versus agave presence versus wooden/previous-content character, permitting him to find out the most effective mixture for the reposado he was aiming to create.
He settled on the trio of Sauternes, Pedro Ximénez Sherry and Bourbon as his excellent mixture primarily based on the flavour qualities every barrel delivered to the ultimate composition. The Bourbon barrels from Kentucky supplied construction and stability, anchoring the profile with notes of vanilla, mild smoke, and toasted oak.
In distinction, the Sauternes wine casks from Bordeaux, France, gently form the spirit, lending a mushy, rounded mouthfeel and a lifted fragrant profile that brings refined floral and honeyed nuances.
Lastly, the Pedro Ximénez Sherry casks from Jerez, Spain, add a fragile layer of sweetness and nutty richness, introducing hints of dried fruit and heat spice that complement the agave’s pure character.
Collectively, they lead to an agave-forward Tequila described as rounded, expressive, and superbly balanced.
He additionally examined two approaches: sequential ageing and parallel ageing with mixing on the finish. He settled on the blended mixture following 4 months of maturation, which allowed him to layer the cask influences whereas making certain the agave notes remained current.
Doing this at such a small scale, he says, bolstered the extent of management he had over the complete mission.
He notes that finally, a multi-cask idea resembling that is realistically tied to small, extremely managed distilleries, because it implies that hands-on manufacturing, resembling full management over fermentation, distillation and barrel dealing with, is completely attainable. He explains that massive manufacturers would discover this scale and stage of complexity very arduous to copy: “I used to be for a few years at one of many largest manufacturers, and I do know that to try this could be very, very, very arduous – to mix hundreds of thousands of litres is one other animal.”
Innovation with out imitation
De Colsa reiterates that on the coronary heart of this launch was his need to make a Tequila that tastes like Tequila, intentionally resisting turning Tequila right into a flavoured or fashion-driven spirit.
“To attempt to copy or make one thing that doesn’t come from the identical product, for me, that’s a type of disrespect to the individuals behind it,” he says.
“Over time, as I’ve grown, I’ve realised increasingly that this has been one thing very deep in my soul, in my beliefs. Once you go to the harvest, you see the individuals working at 4 within the morning within the chilly, or at noon below intense solar, chopping every little thing by hand. After which you already know that what they produce is being proven in locations like Japan or Australia, on the opposite facet of the world. If it doesn’t really style like what it’s, you lose respect for all of the individuals who made it.
“I perceive that generally with Tequila there’s an effort to adapt to what customers like, and that may be OK. However in a sure manner, you lose respect for the origin of the plant. For me, the extra you’ll be able to preserve the flavours and aromas that come from the uncooked plant, the extra profitable and the extra actual it’s.”
The Misplaced Explorer Tequila Reposado joins the model’s blanco expression, which launched in 2024.
Nonetheless, The Misplaced Explorer is primarily a mezcal model, which boasts Espadín, Tobalá, and Salmiana mezcal varieties.
The brand new expression can be out there from 8 Could at Amathus and thru its web site for £59.99 (US$81.75).
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