Hey Paul B - to revive our discussion on Tequila from a while back


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Scott T 🇺🇸 | 122 ratings Author Posted 20 Jan '19

(Sorry this is off the topic of rum, but I did clearly put it in the headline so no one would waste their time clicking on it) I decided to start a new thread rather than revive the old one to save countless minutes of scrolling down ;-) I acquired the lineup of Suerte from Total Wine when I was visiting my GF's family in Knoxville recently. I broke open the (excellent) anejo tonight and had a few questions after revisiting that thread, First of all, where can you get this anejo for $26??? I paid $40, Old town has it for $49 and Hitime $51. Lowest I see on wine-searcher.com is $43 and avg is $51. I paid $25 for the blanco, are you sure you're not getting the prices mixed up? If you can actually get it for that price it is a misprice and you should buy it all. Secondly, what is Suerte 100? Did you mean 400, their 6 yr XA? They also have a 7 yr with a crown (2016) or diamond (2014) on the bottle and an 8 yr with lips. I got 3 of the 7 yr crown bottles (2 for a friend) but haven't opened mine yet - my friend was very excited I found it for $80 which seems to be a great price. It has the highest rating of all their XAs on tequila matchmaker. For the price I would say the Suerte lineup is the best bargain and competes well with the best Tequilas I have had. I would love to get the still strength blanco, but have yet to come across it. The Fortaleza still strength (92 proof) is amazing. I had a very interesting XA - Crotalo 3-5-7 Tres Marcos, a blend of - you guess it, 3 5 and 7 yr old Tequila. My friend says it is aged in Sauternes casks and it has an unusual spicy taste which I like a lot. I tried the anejo at a get together and it was also quite interesting, and plan to buy the lineup next time i order from Hitime.
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Paul B 🇺🇸 | 472 ratings Replied 20 Jan '19

Scott T: Glad to hear that you brought this topic back! I have since found bottles of Siete Leguas locally, the Anejo and the Reposado. Both are truly incredible sipping tequilas and rate among the finest tequilas that I have tried. The Anejo was $55 and the Reposado was $50 and worth every penny. Only one merchant carries them and they are 50 miles away. They are also notorious for dropping slow sellers, so there is no telling if they will still be there the next time I return to suburban New Orleans. As for Suerte Anejo, I had two more snifters of it last night watching Greta Van Fleet on Saturday Night Live. When I first saw the Suerte Anejo at Acquistapace's in Mandeville, LA for only $26 about six months ago, I could not believe it. They also carry the Reposado, but not the Blanco. Thinking that were marked wrong, I bought all three bottles on the shelf. Since they are only 20 miles away from me, I go back that way frequently and I keep checking. Yes, they still carry it, but the price has gone up to $27. Then on one of those bottles, I got a hint as for the reason on the low cost. The plastic top came undone from the cork. No big deal! Just remove the cork with a nutcracker and then use silicon sealant to glue the plastic cap back to the cork. This only happened once, but something tells me that this merchant is getting bargains on bottles that did not pass QC muster. What is in the bottle is still very good. It is a great sipper, especially at this price. As for the Suerte 100, I tried one snifter at a well stocked Mexican restaurant. I asked the waiter if there was a picture of a diamond on the bottle and he told me no. I deemed this Suerte 100 as tasting so similar to the Anejo and not worth trying to find a bottle. Since I never got to see the bottle, it may have well been just the Anejo. I only use tequila when I start accruing pounds again and need to take it off. There is something in the agave that burns fat. Sticking with dry rums also helps to avoid weight gain. Thankfully, about one third of all the rums that I have reviewed here happen to be dry (0-9 gpl of added sugar). Surprisingly the most popular sugar bombs (30-49 gpl of added sugar) only amount to less than 3% of what I have reviewed, 5 bottles total. I just don't buy any more of them. As for Total Wine, notice that they only have these massive stores in 23 of the 50 USA states. These are the states with sensible alcohol laws. Mine is not one of them and spirits cannot be shipped from other states to me. However, one man told me that he had spirits shipped from the UK, so it is probably interstate shipping of spirits that is not allowed. Why? One part that I read is that someone's child could intercept the package, open it up, drink the contents, and wind up in the ER. This is nothing but a BS excuse for keeping the middle man funded. Yes, liquor stores will make special orders for me, but only for a 12 bottle case that I would only order if I knew that I liked it an awful lot. The nearest Total Wine from me is 370 miles away in Houston, TX. Florida's closest store is in Gainesville or Jacksonville. It will take a very special concert in those areas to get me into one of their stores. Then again, one of the rules for winning cooking contests is that ingredients must be easily accessible. As for now, those Total Wine exclusives like Doorly's are not easily accessible.
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Scott T 🇺🇸 | 122 ratings Author Replied 20 Jan '19

When FedEx ships alcohol they put a sticker on the box requiring someone 21 or older to sign for it so that excuse doesn't hold up. I doubt very much they are getting a deal because of bad corks, if the bottler knew of the problem they would just put new corks in rather than send out substandard product. The corks in my bottles are synthetic. What is their price on the repo? In any event a lot of Tequila is known to have cork problems and no one makes that big a deal about it. My Fortaleza blanco cork broke just last week.
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Paul B 🇺🇸 | 472 ratings Replied 20 Jan '19

Scott: I accidentally bought the Reposado once and it was only a dollar cheaper. The color of those bunny rabbits on the bottle can be confusing. It is yellow for the Anejo and orange for the Reposado. It should be the other way around. Maybe that mistake is the reason for the discounts. Whatever, I will keep buying the Anejo even if the price goes up. I also learned a lot more about rhum agricoles recently. When a rum is distilled from cane juice instead of molasses, it picks up the flavors of charred barrels much more quickly. I found that 3-4 years for aging agricoles is optimum, except in the case of Barbancourt that needs 8 years due to the use of uncharred Limousin oak casks. And in less than two hours, it it will be, "Who Dat say dey can beat dem Saints! Who Dat! Who Dat!". I am sure there will be a few Falcons fans in the Dome rooting for the Rams. Regretfully, I cannot be there in person due to the new requirement this year of tickets being on smart phones, which I do not have.
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Scott T 🇺🇸 | 122 ratings Author Replied 20 Jan '19

You need to get with the times, I was the last person I know to get a cell phone and even I have had a smart phone for 4-5 yrs now LOL. I'm still using a laptop I bought in 2010. No mistake on the coloration, that seems to be the convention for coloring labels. Pasote is the same . https://www.maxliquor.com/product-p/pasote-tequila-set.htm
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Paul B 🇺🇸 | 472 ratings Replied 20 Jan '19

Scott: I only got a cell phone in 2006 so that I could make emergency calls if I ever got a flat while riding my Harley on lonely country roads. After 6 years, 5 bikes, 60,000 miles, I still have a cell phone for only $15 per month with no contract and it can never get hacked. I gave up my bikes in 2012. I just love my desktop with Windows 7. I had to special order it used from 2000 miles away about two years ago. I already tried the Pasote Blanco months ago from Bambooze Liquors in Pensacola FL. That was another good one that I will pick up again on my next visit to that area. They also carry Carta Vieja rums from Panama. Do you know why those bunny rabbits are on the bottles of Suerte? About 400 years ago, a farmers wife in Jalisco Mexico observed lots of rabbits hanging around the agave plants and acting drunk. They were partaking of the fermented agave from the natural yeast in the area. So that means that rabbits discovered tequila and humans took credit for it. I just love wild stories like this. The story behind Pusser's Gunpowder Proof Rum is that when the daily rations for the British Royal Navy got spilled near the gunpowder on the ship, it still ignited, so this is how this rum got it's name. The label on the back of the bottle goes into further detail saying that the ship's purser (Pusser) would add a few grains of gunpowder to the rum to see if it ignited. If it did, then that was Proof that the rum was good enough. If not, the purser risked getting tossed into the sea. Nice folks!
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Paul B 🇺🇸 | 472 ratings Replied 21 Jan '19

Scott: For the NFC Championship game, I had three bottles of rum lined up next to me. I alternated between South Bay and K&S 23 year. I also had a third bottle just in case the game got bad, which was Pusser's Gunpowder Proof. Since South Bay is so hard to find, I leaned towards K&S 23 for most of the game. If you see a bottle of South Bay, bring it home because I know your preferences! Check out my review! There were quite a few bad calls from crooked refs who were obviously paid to throw the game against the Saints. In those last two minutes, the most blatant of those calls had me switch to the Pusser's Gunpowder Proof. Thanks to the crooked refs, the Saints will not be going back to the Super Bowl. This kind of crap will only stop if season ticket holders give them up. As for me, my cheap cell phone has saved me thousands of dollars from NFL Ticket Exchange that can go towards rum. There may be lots of crooked rum companies out there, but at least these reviews can steer us all away from them.