Distillery Info
Don Cenobio, founded his first distillery – La Perseverancia – in 1873, in the town of Tequila, Jalisco.
Not only was Don Cenobio The first person to export “mezcal de tequila” to the United States, shorten the name to just Tequila, and implement the use of steam to cook the agave (instead of an earthen pit), Cenobio also stated that the Blue Agave was the best agave to use for production.
His son, Eladio, took over the family business in 1909 when Don Cenobio had passed away. During his time, Don Eladio brought the nectar of the gods to the world, under various names such as Mexican brandy, Mexican whiskey, tequila, and as an aperitif. During the Mexican Revolution, Eladio helped to establish tequila as the national drink of Mexico. He also founded the distillery, La Constancia.
Don Eladio died in 1946, and left the family business to his son, Francisco Javier who brought about more changes to the industry and made our family’s tequila the most well-known brand in the world. The single most important thing that Don Javier did for the industry was to help establish the Denomination of Origin for Tequila.
Don Javier sold the family business in 1976, but the family kept the land with their hacienda and distillery. In 1999, Don Javier’s grandson, Guillermo, began the process of getting the old distillery up and running again.
After several years of renovations and hard work, Don Guillermo got Destileria La Fortaleza up and running again, making tequila in the same way it was made over 100 years ago – with a small brick oven to cook the agave, a tahona to squeeze the juices out of the agave, wood tanks for fermentation, and the 2 original copper pots for distillation. – Distillery Notes
