History and legends surrounding tequila are as full of magic as Mexico's culture. We've read volumes on the distilling and making of tequila; we've seen many brands in stores and there're scores of others we'll equally enjoy during our stay in this country. Yet, the passionate thing of all is its legend... Word has it that in the region of Tequillan, inhabited by the Tequilas -descendants of the Toltec civilization- and old sage named Achio Colli (The First of the Grandparents), had heard his ancestors that the gods had one day got angry and had sent a storm.

One of the lightning bolt struck on the leaves of the magueyes, burning them down to a crisp except around the heart that eventually squirted out a nice-smelling liquid. That was construed as a god-sent gift and a token of forgiveness, a present that would feed them and would make them forget their sorrows. The plant of agave or maguey, grew wildly in nearly barren soils that harbored Mayaguel, the symbol of land fertility. He made them productive and Quetzalcoatl taught men how to make the most of this miracle.

From the dawn of tequila, these gods were bound to cope with Tezcatlipoca, the evil deity whose black mirror reflected goodhearted men in him. That's been the road of tequila, trapped between trends, evil and good, good times and slumping moments. Until 1600, the use of this beverage and its byproducts were pretty limited. The first factory to distill mescal wine set up shop on that same year.

Pedro de Tagle, Marquis of Altamira, was said to be the man who built the first tequila-making factory and fostered the cropping of agave in a formal fashion, introducing the distilling of the beverage -a process that was unknown to the indigenous population in the beginning and wound up making a half-bred liquor. After piles of tribulations, Jose Antonio Cuervo got the first license to produce mescal wine at the Cuervo (Crow) Tavern in 1758. La Rojera was the first factory that started churning out tequila as we know it today. From that moment on, tequila has turned out to be a well-known beverage around the world, still reeking of magic and his