Tequila production process

The support needed so that our processes are performed as planned, depends on the documented information available to the operator. With the responsibility of maintaining ISO certifications in Tequila Sauza, we became aware that the documents themselves are not enough, workers that carry out those activities that have an impact on the quality and safety of food, the environment or the safety & health at our workplace, require knowing and becoming familiar with these documents, as well as applying them. Common sense was essential to achieve this. 

In my previous blog, I wrote about some of the agave production processes that we carry out in order to grow and harvest the best agave possible. These processes helped us get the international quality certification known as ISO 9001 and are the following:

1. Land Selection
2. Preparation of the land
3. Planting of the agave

In this blog post, I will summarize the processes that follow these first three, so that we can better understand them and acknowledge thus, the importance that it has to do it all right, from the very beginning. This is what helps us have excellent crops.

In more than 13 years of experience working in Casa Sauza, my friends still ask me about the myths and legends about tequila. Discover which ones are true and which ones are false. You will find in this article some of them:

• Step 4.- General Inspection of Quality Function
• Step 5.- Improvement of the Inspection and the Maintenance Efficiency
• Step 6.- Carrying out Predictive Maintenance
• Step 7.- Horizontal Replication

History of Casa Sauza

On several occasions I've had to listen and even smile -with some discomfort- to some "fans" who discuss or question the processes of tequila-making, regardless of the brand or NOM that makes them. I have talked with them, known and even learned of the different criteria that each of the distilleries has for the development of our national drink, and I've realized that is that the lack of communication and maybe some minor ignorance, that has developed in some people -not all-, a misinformation about products traditionally made or "handcrafted", to use their words.

In the world, there are different types of alcoholic beverages. Each one of them posses its own flavor, essence, and a specific target. The most important difference is that there are certain beverages that due to its making process, are able to turn into an exclusive liquor just like tequila.

Many people ask themselves about what is the true difference between all the alcoholic beverages coming from the agave plant. Tequila its unique because of all the diverse processes used in its elaboration as well as the extraction methods.

As a Tequila city inhabitant, I everyday hear at the places where they sell tequila that they offer "Quality Tequilas". Some might even reassure you that they sell THE best quality tequila and, considering the amount of tequilas that can be found at these shops, I can't help but wonder, What do they mean by a quality tequila?

In the more of 15 years that I've been working in this company, I've gone through a lot of systems and methodologies implementations, always focusing in making the production processes more efficient, improving the product's quality, costs and delivery times. But these systems didn't come alone, they included a big number of formats, register documents, and manuals that overwhelmed our employees because they had long working periods and this affected their quality of life for not having an automatic system that would have allowed us to optimize times and schedules.

For the more than 33 years of personal and professional growth I've lived at Casa Sauza, I'd like to acknowledge what this great company (number 9 in the ranking of the Great Place to Work program, Mexico) has done for my family and for myself.

Do you want to know which factors you have to consider to develop a new product? In this blog post, we will give you some tips to do so. As products are diversifying more and more and shortening their life cycles, the importance of releasing new products increases, as well as the efficiency improvement and team investments.