The Blue Gold Rush is on
Driving around Amatitán last week one thing was clear. If there's any arable land, even the most liminal, there is blue agave growing in it. Roadside shoulders, a patch of dirt between rocks, under fruit trees, let alone open fields
What’s a fair price for agave? Tequila edition
I’m still catching up with things from my trip so I’m late to this Insta post from Tequila Matchmaker last month which charts what they know about blue agave prices today and projected into the future.
Agave inflation or right pricing?
Agave prices in Jalisco just keep rising. Per a friend in the business blue agave in Jalisco is "27 (pesos/kilo) for good, mature, and ripe agave, 24/25 for unripe agave." He also noted that it's the rainy season now which
Agave price update
[/media-credit] Fields of blue agave in the valles region outside of Tequila.[/caption]
It’s the heart of your mezcal and the culture around it but how much is the actual agave worth and who’s getting paid? And why is it so god damned expensive? There are no easy answers but lots of trends.
For much of this year we’ve been hearing that the price of agave in tequila country has been as high as recent memory. In 2016 it was already expensive at 10 pesos per kilo, then it spiked to 18, 19, and 21 pesos per kilo in the summer of 2017. On my recent trip to Guadalajara I heard some people say the price had softened a bit to the 17-18 peso per kilo range. Meanwhile in Oaxaca the price of agave has been rising as well, but closer to the 10 peso per kilo range.
David Suro on the agave price spike
Yesterday Siembra Valles and Tequila Interchange Project founder David Suro posted the following to Facebook on the agave price spike that everyone has been discussing over the past months. In July it seemed like 18 pesos a kilo was extravagant,