As global thirst for tequila grows, who benefits?

“Terroir is about land. It’s the taste of place, literally,” says Marie Sarita Gaytán, author of ¡Tequila! Distilling the Spirit of Mexico and associate professor of sociology and gender studies at the University of Utah. “But it’s also about people. It’s about what people do. It’s about how people live. It’s about what people bring. The knowledge. The generational know-how. It’s about families.”

Like many industries, there’s a long history of gender inequality in the Tequila business, Gaytán says, but the role that women played in mezcal, pulque and other agave distillates is nuanced. She says that within Indigenous cultures, women were acknowledged as consumers.

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