Herradura Tequila Blanco

Another treasure bottle tequila review today. This one is the 2001 bottled Herradura Tequila Blanco (92 proof). People always talk about how "good things used to be." To an extent with drinks, I think that's often because people want to believe it's true because they can no longer get it...and that makes it special. But sometimes, it does hold true. With the old Herradura, I'll be interested to find out. This is my first experience and I'm definitely intrigued by the 92 proof.

Price: $35-40/bottle

Aroma: A crisp cooked agave scent with hints of citrus, pine and pepper.

Initial Taste: A sweet and somewhat piney/minty entry. Really interesting. Lots of agave.

Body: Nice oils in the body. Still lots of plant flavors in the body and a really strong and peppery agave kick. Very natural tasting and very potent.

Finish: A long and peppery finish. There's obviously a bit more sizzle from the high proof, but it works well with the tequila profile.

If this is what tequila was like in the good old days, that was a golden age of drinking. This is crisp and clean...and it packs a punch. The natural plant flavors are there and there's just enough sweetness from the agave sugars to round it all out. If I could sip and mix with something this good all the time, I'd be in tequila heaven. This is a flavor packed blanco that's great in all respects. Now if I could just find a bunch of it for its original MSRP....

Over 200 reviews and I've never review a tequila from the Herradura line. That doesn't seem possible. It's about time I got around to doing it.

Aroma: An interesting mix of fruity agave, honey and straw/light wood. You can certainly tell that it has been slightly rested.
Initial Taste: A nice entry with light fruit and grassy notes.
Body: Fairly thin body. Agave is prominent with a touch of wood and honey or vanilla.
Finish: A unique finish for a blanco because of the presence of wood. There's a decent agave kick as well. The only negative that it ends a bit harsh/hot with a bit too much of an alcohol tingle.

This is a pretty unique blanco. Lots of ancillary flavors make it fun to taste and try to pick them out. Those flavors and the hot finish make me think this would be a really good mixer. It's probably more of a sipper for tequila vets than for rookies, but it's a solid around juice.

Purchased a bottled and tasted out of a snifter. I previously left a c grade review for this blanco about two years ago. However, I decided to give it a shot again after their master distiller said improvements had been made. While I dont consider it my favorite, it definitely is a bottle id buy again. The 45 days in wood isnt my favorite way to go with a blanco, but it seems to work for Herradura.

Aroma: A very nice agave arome with an EVER so slight nose of slight wood.
Initial Taste: A soft entry with no bitterness. A think mouth feel, and an initial taste of grass.
Body: A nice agave body with a healthy compliment of earth (what I usually detect in tequila from Amatitan), slight fruit, and smoke.
Finish: A nicely semi heated finish with a decent agave lingering.

So... Not my favorite, but I would get a bottle again.

The aroma is organic chem lab: isoamyl acetate (banana oil) and acetone perhaps. Sickly sweet, really unusual for a tequila. The initial taste is just more organic solvents. What's in this stuff? Then it reveals a watery mouthfeel. The taste changes into a dry, bitter, not unpleasant taste typical of agave. This would have made a great beginning. Little aftertaste or burn.

This is especially disappointing for Herradura as they make the most highly regarded tequila here for just a few hundred dollars more. I will not buy this again.

It's official: even a small amount of any of the Herradura line gives me a wicked headache the entire next day. Nothing else does this to me - no other tequila, and no other alcoholic beverage ever - weird. Anyway, very odd tequila for me. Not worth spending a ton of time reviewing to me, but the one noteworthy thing is that I felt like this was pretty smooth tasting. It would be a great mixing tequila as a result of that if it weren't for the price and the headache factor for me. If neither of those are a factor for you it might be worth checking out. Regardless, I wouldn't recommend this. Try something else for the money.