We love tequila. It’s causing problems

Life and Art from FT Weekend

Forhecz Topher

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture

4.6 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 8 April 2023

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, we talk tequila. Over the last 20 years, it has become wildly popular, celebrity-endorsed, and top-shelf. Tequila and mezcal are the fastest-growing spirit category in the US; this year, they are set to overtake vodka as the country's best-selling spirit. But the impact on local Mexican farmers and distillers has been damaging, and demand is outpacing supply. Ivy Mix, author of Spirits of Latin America and owner of respected Brooklyn bar Leyenda, talks us through what's at risk – and what can be done. Then, we head to Mexico City to learn the traditional way to drink the spirit from Gina Barbachano, one of the city's top bartenders.

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Want to say hi? We love hearing from you. Email us at [email protected]. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap.

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Links:

– Lilah’s magazine piece, ‘How Americans ruined tequila – and the true believers saving it’: https://on.ft.com/40QnpXW

– Ivy’s book is called Spirits of Latin America. She’s on Instagram @IvyMix

– Gina is bartender and co-owner of Hanky Panky, in Mexico City. She’s on Instagram @GinaBarbachano

– Ivy poured Lilah Tequila Ocho, Siembra Azul, and Fortaleza, as examples of tequilas doing good work. Gina poured us Caballito Cerero

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Special discounts for podcast listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial are here: http://ft.com/weekendpodcast.

Our US edition of the FTWeekend Festival is back! Join Jamie Lee Curtis, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alice Waters, your favourite FT writers and more on May 20 in Washington, DC, and online. Register now and save $20 off using promo code weekendpodcast at ft.com/festival-us

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Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco.

Additional clips this week copyright Atlantic Records and Universal Music Group.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm going to play a song that you may also know in love.
0:04.5	It was released in 2009.
0:06.4	It's by the rapper T.I.
0:08.3	And it's called Whatever You Like.
0:14.9	I realized recently that this isn't just a seminal song that I remember from college.
0:22.2	This is an anthem.
0:24.0	And it's an anthem for an entire generation of tequila drinkers.
0:35.5	I'm not sure if you ever analyze the lyrics of this song, but what's happening here is
0:40.5	Ti likes a girl, and he tells her he'll give her whatever she wants, decks of cash, a private
0:46.6	jet, and also Petron on ice. Petron is a top shelf tequila brand that got popular in the early 2000s.
0:57.5	It became a status symbol like Kristol or Hennessy.
1:01.7	Drake sang about Patron.
1:03.6	So did Liljohn, T. Payne, and Rihanna.
1:08.3	And what makes us interesting is that without realizing it, as we were singing along,
1:14.2	we were changing the way Americans thought about tequila.
1:17.7	Rap music and patron, I think, is how it all started.
1:24.6	I'm talking to Ivy Mix.
1:26.4	She's the author of the award-winning cocktail book,
1:28.8	Spirits of Latin America. Ivy loves tequila. She owns a bar in New York that specializes in
1:35.1	tequila and other Latin American spirits. And Petrone became not something that was tequila,
1:43.1	it became a brand that happened to be tequila that had a lot of
1:48.2	status attached to it. In the decades before, tequila in America was something you took shots of
	...

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