Fortaleza Añejo Tequila 750ml | Mexico

Production Notes

Fortaleza Añejo is produced at Destilería La Fortaleza using traditional methods unchanged for over a century — Blue Agave is cooked in a small brick oven, pressed using a tahona (a large stone wheel), fermented in wood tanks, and distilled in the two original copper pot stills. The añejo is then aged to develop the caramel, vanilla, and butterscotch complexity that defines the Fortaleza house style. No shortcuts, no modern shortcuts — just tequila made the way it was always meant to be made.

Producer History

The Fortaleza story begins in 1873, when Don Cenobio Sauza founded La Perseverancia distillery in the town of Tequila, Jalisco. Don Cenobio was a pioneer in every sense — the first person to export mezcal de tequila to the United States, the man who shortened the name to simply “Tequila”, the first to use steam rather than an earthen pit to cook the agave, and the first to declare that Blue Agave was the finest agave for production. His son Don Eladio took over in 1909 and helped establish tequila as the national drink of Mexico during the Mexican Revolution. Don Eladio’s son, Don Francisco Javier, made the family’s tequila the most well-known brand in the world and — most significantly — helped establish the Denomination of Origin for Tequila, protecting the spirit and the region for generations to come. Don Javier sold the family business in 1976, but the family retained the land, the hacienda, and the original distillery. In 1999, his grandson Guillermo began the painstaking process of restoring Destilería La Fortaleza to working order — bringing it back to life with the same brick oven, the same tahona, the same wood fermentation tanks, and the same two original copper pot stills. Making tequila exactly as it was made over 100 years ago, and exactly as it should be.