Our Process
Made the Way It Should Be
Great tequila takes time. Socorro starts in the Highlands of Jalisco with 100% Blue Weber agave and a process built around patience, traditional methods and attention at every step.
From harvest to bottling, every decision is made to preserve the character of the agave and let the tequila speak for itself.
Agave. Water. Yeast. That’s it.
Harvesting the Agave
Everything begins in the Highlands of Jalisco. Mature Blue Weber agaves are selected in the fields at peak ripeness, when their natural sugars and character are ready to be revealed.
The plants are harvested by hand, and the leaves are removed to expose the piña at the heart of the agave. It’s careful work, done with respect for the plant, the land and the people who know both best.
Traditional Brick Ovens
The piñas are halved and slowly cooked in traditional brick ovens for 24 hours, then left to rest in the ovens for another full day.
The gentle heat breaks down the agave into fermentable sugars and gives it time to soften and caramelize naturally, developing sweetness and depth without rushing the process. No high-pressure shortcuts. Just heat, time and patience.
Extracting the Agave
Once cooked, the softened agave is crushed in roller mills to release its naturally sweet juice, called aguamiel.
Separating the juice from the agave fibers, called bagazo, gives us the foundation for the tequila that follows, rich with the flavor and character developed in the fields and ovens.
Fermentation With Patience
The agave juice is combined with natural deep well water and yeast in open-air tanks, fermenting for 96 hours. We then do a malolactic fermentation for another three days to add complexity to our tequila.
Our fermentation tanks are open-air, so wild yeast also joins in and helps shape each batch. As fermentation progresses, aroma and flavor begin to develop, building the character that will carry through into the finished tequila.
The Heart of the Tequila
Socorro is double distilled in stainless steel pot stills, with a copper coil on the second distillation, to concentrate and refine the flavors developed throughout fermentation.
After the second distillation, the spirit is carefully separated to capture the heart of the tequila, the corazón, preserving the balance, aroma and agave character we want in every bottle.
Aging and the Final Touches
Socorro Blanco is unaged, so the agave comes through clean and bright. For Reposado and Añejo, time in virgin American oak adds another layer of character. Socorro Reposado rests for approximately four months, while Socorro Añejo ages for around 14 months, developing notes of oak, vanilla and warm spice while keeping the agave at the center. No coloring, no oak extracts.
The result is tequila made with care from beginning to end, ready to be poured, served and shared.
No Shortcuts.
Traditional methods matter to us not because they sound impressive, but because they show up in the glass.
Time in the oven. Patience during fermentation. Careful distillation. Thoughtful aging. Each step has a purpose, and together they create tequila with the character, balance and quality Socorro is built around.
Good to Know
Tequila Making FAQs
Socorro is made in the Highlands of Jalisco, Mexico, where our tequila is produced from 100% Blue Weber agave using traditional methods and a process built around time, patience and care.
Socorro is made from three ingredients: 100% Blue Weber agave, water and yeast.
We harvest based on Brix, which measures the fermentable sugar in the agave, and aim for around 32 to 33 Brix. It takes years for an agave to get there, but we let the plants tell us when they’re ready instead of going by an obligatory number of calendar years. That’s why we go into the fields and check the agaves’ Brix levels before every harvest.
Pencas are the long, spiky leaves of the agave plant. At harvest, our jimadores cut them away by hand to expose the piña, the heart of the plant where the sugars are stored.
For Socorro, the jimadores leave about 2 cm (about ¾ inch) of the penca. That imparts a desirable herbaceous note to our tequila, reflecting the land and the agave that make Socorro possible.
Yes! The cogollo is located at the top of the piña. It’s bitter, so we cut it out before the piñas go into the ovens. Not all tequila makers do this. We aim to make a clean, bright tequila, and keeping the cogollo would add off-flavors.
The agave piñas are halved and slowly cooked in traditional brick ovens for 24 hours, then left to rest in the ovens for another full day, allowing their natural sugars to caramelize and develop before fermentation.
No. We use neither.
Socorro’s agave juice ferments for 96 hours with natural deep well water and yeast in open-air tanks, followed by three more days of malolactic fermentation, giving aroma and flavor time to develop before distillation.
Socorro is double distilled, with the second distillation carefully separating the spirit to capture the heart of the tequila.
Very! Our distillery is 99% waste-free. After the aguamiel is extracted, the leftover agave fibers, called bagazo, don’t go to waste. They’re used as livestock feed and returned to the soil, so the agave that came from the land goes back to it.