Our Processes

Harvesting Agave

Our Blue Weber agave is allowed to mature for seven to ten years before skilled jimadores harvest each plant by hand at peak readiness. Only the best agave that has been carefully cultivated, cared for, and inspected for quality is selected. Agreements with farmers in the Tequila, Jalisco lowlands area ensure sustainable practices are honored and quality is a continuous cycle.

Selecting the Best Agave Hearts

From carefully hand-tended, inspected, and harvested agave, only the finest mature agave hearts, or piñas, are selected to move forward. Protecting the quality, aroma, and flavor of every batch of Jose León is of the utmost importance to the family. The Jose León family is involved in every step, process, and procedure, from growth to bottling.

Agave Roasting Difference

The selected agave piñas are then slow roasted in traditional stone hornos or autoclaves for seventy-two hours plus an extra roasting cycle, allowing us to develop a specialized mosto juice with the extra-roasted, deeper cooked and caramelized agave profile you can only get from Jose León Tequila.

Agave Juice - (Mosto) Extraction

The roasted agave is extracted through two complementary methods: traditional tahona crushing with a volcanic stone wheel and modern mechanical shredding to separate the rich agave juice from the fibers.

Fermentation

After extraction, the agave-rich mosto is transferred to fermentation vats, where our proprietary yeast converts the natural fermentable sugars released through roasting and extraction into alcohol. Temperature, timing, yeast activity, and sugar conversion are carefully monitored to maintain consistency and protect the roasted-agave character created in the hornos. During this transformation, fermentation develops the aromatic compounds and flavor-building elements that give Jose León Tequila its depth, body, and complexity, supporting notes of cooked agave, fruit, citrus, and gentle florals. Once fermentation is complete, the resulting liquid—known as mosto muerto, or dead wash—contains the alcohol and flavor compounds that will be carefully filtered before entering our copper pot stills for double distillation.

Filtration

Moving the fermented agave liquid from the fermentation tank to the distillation still requires careful handling of our delicate liquid, called mosto muerto (dead wash), because it contains suspended yeast cells, dead bacterial cells, and certain amounts of agave fiber (bagazo). Distilling these solids directly can cause scorching against the heating elements of the still, ruining the batch flavor. Because it often contains fibrous residues, yeast sediment, and organic particulates, using graded strainers with progressively finer mesh sizes is essential to ensure a clean final flavor.

1. Step 1 — Roughly 10 to 20 mesh (1.0 mm–2.0 mm openings).
2. Step 2 — 40 to 60 mesh (0.25 mm–0.4 mm openings).
3. Step 3 — 100+ mesh or industrial cheesecloth/inline bag filters.

Copper Pot Distillation

The fermented agave wash is double distilled in copper pot stills, concentrating and refining the spirit while removing unwanted sulfur compounds. Copper primarily cleans and refines the spirit, retains more flavorful congeners—giving tequila fuller body, richer agave character and greater complexity.

Resting

After double distillation in copper pot stills, our tequila is removed and the copper stills are cleaned. The distilled tequila is then returned to rest for two weeks, further softening it and allowing volatile compounds to settle. The heads, tails, and hearts are cut and separated, with only the hearts retained. The Jose León tequila then passes through a number of filtration screen sizes to remove particles and coarse impurities.

Proofing

The tequila is diluted with deionized water to bottling strength at 40% ABV, then rests again to stabilize. It passes through a fine screen to remove smaller particles before being transferred to a stainless steel storage tank.

Stainless Steel Resting

The distilled spirit rests in stainless steel vats for a few weeks, allowing the tequila to settle and integrate while preserving its pure agave character. Once it is ready to be bottled or barreled for aging, it is removed from the stainless steel vats and moved into a specialized container.

Freeze Filtering & Bottling

The spirit is chilled below freezing, usually around 26°F, for a few hours and then passed through depth filters for lasting clarity. It is then bottled or placed into American oak barrels immediately after filtration to preserve the intended flavors and aromas. The brief cold filtering avoids using harsh filters such as charcoal, paper, and fabric filters that can strip flavors and aromas.