Town and License
A Town Gives Its Name
The name comes from a real town in Jalisco. There, a local agave spirit grew into a drink that's now protected worldwide – and precisely for that reason, not just anyone with agaves can distill it.
Where the Name Tequila Comes From
The town of Tequila lies in the Mexican state of Jalisco, surrounded by fields of blue-green agave. People here used the agave long before the Spanish arrived; distilling began during the colonial era, and this spirit later took the town's name. What started as a place name became a product name, and the product name became a protected designation. Only a handful of spirits have followed this same path: Champagne from Champagne, Cognac from the town of Cognac, Tequila from Tequila.
Historical Mexican regulations apparently once called the drink "Vino mezcal de Tequila," literally "mezcal wine from Tequila." The term appears in several retellings of tequila's history, though no original source could be reliably located during this research. It therefore belongs more to oral tradition than to a documented legal text, even though it illustrates the idea well: tequila was initially just a special kind of mezcal, named after where it was made.
The Cuervo Family's First License
In the late 18th century, the Spanish Crown under King Carlos IV granted the Cuervo family one of the first official licenses to distill tequila commercially. The commonly cited year is 1795, though the exact date doesn't appear identically in every source. Cuervo remains one of the oldest active brands of the spirit and is often cited as proof of just how old the craft behind the name really is.
This early license wasn't enough for true protection of origin. It allowed a single producer to make the spirit but didn't protect the name "Tequila" itself from being copied elsewhere. Almost two hundred years passed between this first permit and actual legal protection, during which tequila evolved from a regional drink into a Mexican export with a reputation all its own.
A Name That Became a Brand
As its reputation grew, so did the risk of outside brands using the name without any real connection to the town. This very risk later triggered the government protection of origin described in the next stop of this journey. Without the town and its history, the word tequila simply wouldn't exist – the place itself is the namesake of the spirit.
Anyone visiting the town of Tequila today finds agave fields stretching to the edge of town and distilleries that have operated on the same sites for generations. It sits in the heart of the so-called Valle de Tequila and remains part of the protected region to this day. The name is therefore no marketing invention, but a description of a real place with a real history.
Why Not Just Call It Agave Spirit?
One might ask why the spirit isn't simply called "agave brandy," given that the plant is really what makes it special. The answer lies in its origin: a name tied to a place can be legally protected, whereas a plant name alone can hardly be. That's why many agave spirits carry different names today, even though they come from related plants.
Raicilla, Bacanora, and Sotol follow the same principle: each name belongs to a region, not to a single plant. Tequila's town name simply got there first, becoming real legal protection in 1974. That's exactly the subject of the next stop on this journey.
The Nahuatl Root of the Word
The name Tequila likely comes from Náhuatl, the language of the Nahua people in pre-Hispanic central Mexico. One widespread interpretation traces it to "tequitl" (work, tribute) and "tlan" (place), together meaning roughly "place of work" or "place where cutting is done." This etymology is linguistically plausible but, like many ancient place names, not fully confirmed in every detail.
Regardless of the exact translation, the name alone shows how deeply rooted the word is in the region, long before anyone thought about laws or export markets. The town carried its name long before anyone imagined it would one day become a globally traded brand.