The Straight Up Features : Sauza Hornitos Tequila

Most liquor comes in two distinct styles, designed to be marketed to two distinct portions of the population. Either it tastes great, but is expensive, or it's horrible crap but costs a pittance. For many, the debate of quality vs affordability is a daily struggle, especially if one is trying to stock a bar, as opposed to ordering a drink in one. The result, of course, is that from rum to wine, people work to find those brands that sneak through, the quality substance that somehow slipped between the cracks, the exceptions where the 'profit first' distillery seems to have put some real pride into their work or a quality producer has allowed the salt of the earth easier access to their art.

I would argue, however, that tequila is one of the harder drinks to do this with. Alcohols like rum or gin are comparatively cheap to begin with, and of such extreme flavor that any given person is probably going to be able to find a taste they enjoy at a reasonable price. Vodka has become such a 'status' product that it's turning into a buyer's market. Even good scotches and whiskeys get toyed around with enough that if you keep your eyes open you can find a reasonably priced bottle of something new and delicious when the need strikes you (and your pocketbook).

But new tequilas aren't that common, and the good ones aren't that cheap (and the cheap ones aren't that good). When it comes to tequila, you can taste where your money goes. It doesn't even diminish significantly. You pay $50 for a bottle instead of $30, and you'll probably say 'yeah, that's about twenty dollars better.' So what are you to do when you simply must have good tequila, but you're down to the change jar?

The answer, once so elusive, seems simple, even obvious, once you know it. You track down a bottle of the House of Sauza's Hornitos Reposada. Tasty but affordable, hornitos is the tequila for the penny pincher who longs for luxury and refinement, and one of the few tequilas you'll have trouble overbidding. When you purchase that fifty dollar bottle, you'll respond 'okay, it might be a little better, but twenty bucks better? I don't THINK so!'

House of Sauza has been around on the long side of a century and in general produces the best taste to cost ratio of tequila I know of. Although I have yet to try some of the really high end Sauzas, I generally tend to think of Sauza as the upper end of middle when it comes to quality tequila. Hornitos I rank on the high end of that.

Hornitos will take you by surprise when you first taste it. It is, in some ways, a tequila that has a foot in two worlds. On one hand, it has a somewhat refined flavor, being both lightly aged and somewhat lemony. It's also 100% Blue Agave, which helps. But at the same time, it retains the zang of cheaper tequilas. Many more refined tequilas, while exceptionally good, seem to lack something of that wild, carefree attitude that truly inexpensive tequilas maintain. You can enjoy a truly high end tequila, but you often, inexplicably, feel a little stodgy when you do. Hornitos allows you to enjoy quality tequila while still retaining the good aspects of that flavor that says 'I bought this with change I found under my couch'. Of course, in touting all of this, I should make it very clear that I'm not merely saying Hornitos is good 'for the price'. It's an excellent tequila which you'll be amazed to find at the prices you can. It's a tequila you should try even if you CAN afford something more expensive.

Hornitos can be mixed well, shot well, sipped well, hell, I even cook with it on occassion. Come to think of it, if I had to use a single adjective to describe Sauza's Hornitos, it'd be 'versatile'. Truly the workhorse of tequilas.

Key facts about Hornitos :

Alcohol Content : 40% or 80 proof, like virtually all tequila allowed into the US. Hornitos, it seems to me, leaves me a little less fucked up than most other tequilas I've trashed myself on, but this may just be circumstance.

Age : Hornitos is a reposado, which means it is aged, but less than a year (generally just a few months). Sauza makes comparably priced blancos, but I don't consider them to really quite match Hornitos in quality or value (or else I'd be reviewing them).

Price (.750) : You'll find some places online who are trying to sell you Hornitos at forty bucks a bottle. Ignore them. While it might be WORTH fourty bucks a bottle, part of the beauty of Hornitos is that with not much work you can easily find a bottle going at $25, or even $20 (depending on region).

Notes : Hornitos is good tequila. It's also smooth and not too overbearing. It has a happier flavor than many tequilas, and is a good drink to pull out for most company if they can tolerate tequila at all. You're not going to overpower any pallets with it.

Final Standing : Soused.