14 December 2006

$450 for a bottle of Tequila Patron? No gracias!


Atotonilco Cantina
Originally uploaded by David Agren.
An interesting article earlier this month in the National Post on the misery of dealing with Liquor Control Board of Ontario noted that a special edition bottle of Tequila Patron was on sale for more than C$450.

That same weekend, I downed a copious amount of tequila in Atotonilco el Alto, Jalisco - where Tequila Patron is made - at my landlady's family reunion. Of course, since Atotonilco is a legendary tequila-producing town, we drank the local brands: mainly 7 Leguas and 3 Magueyes. Don Julio, which is also distilled locally, was absent, perhaps due to its high price - which in Mexico is far less than what the LCBO wants for Tequila Patron. Also missing was Tequila Patron, a brand gaining fame outside of Mexico, but everyone in Atotonilco that day had little positive to say about it. When I told one cousin about the $450 price tag, she commented: "That's abusive."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great points David! We just held the inaugural Toronto Tequila Tasting and the only offerings that came from the LCBO (El Mayor Repo & Anejo, and Corzo Blanco) all faired very poorly in the tastings.

Patron is still available here and still grossly over priced. What makes matters worse is that Patron is riding an enormous wave of marketing hype... the reviewers tent to not think too highly of the regular Patrons (blanco, repo and anejo) - see www.tequila.net .

We had also invited the pertinent folks from the LCBO to join us so that they could both learn and get to know a niche audience that they are completely missing by having not suitable products. They cancelled at the last minute.

On the flip side, Casa Noble was able to get us a full flight of their product line and that's what we started the formal portion of our tasting with.

It was a great event made so by the efforts of those involved (all from http://www.ianchadwick.com/forum/index.php? ) and our willingness to share the treasures we've brought back from Mexico and the US. In all we had 20 varieties on hand... and all but the 3 available at the LCBO were well received. That in itself speaks volumes!