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La Muerte – South African Tequila

Posted on 26. Jan, 2010 by vincenthofmann in Blog, Food, featured

Harvested from organic wild agave plantations in the Karoo desert, slow fermented and quadruple distilled La Muerte South Africa’s very own Tequila is not called “the death” for nothing. Apparently, according to it’s creators it’s “the deadliest Margarita base ever”. Well the minute we get our hands on a bottle we’ll soon find out whether La Muerte lives up to that claim, but for now we’ll trust Seth Rotherham‘s judgment.

The South African agave history is not without intrigue, and the South African origin of the Agave is as rickety and as full of holes as a history book printed in the 70′s. Regardless of that though, historians spin a good yarn and we’ve sourced a brief history of the South African Agave for you:

Agaves – particularly the Mexican blue agave – were introduced into South Africa within the last century and a half. But how they got there is a tale equivalent to the origin of the margarita. One story claims it was Portuguese sailors who brought them in the mid-19th century. A second relates that agave plants were distributed throughout South Africa in the early 1900s for both erosion control and as a fodder crop in droughts. Thousands of plants were planted by many families in the Graaf-Reinet area. A third story says a young girl brought three imported agave plants from Grahamstown in 1938, and planted them on a farm outside Graaff-Reinet. Still another theory goes that the agave plant was introduced by a traveller riding from Grahamstown to Cape Town between 1820 and 1830.

Regardless of which tales is the truth, the agave in South Africa flourished in the Karoo, and now number in the millions. They were used to make an agave-based spirit (now called Agava) since 2003, in a venture that lasted until spring, 2008.

From http://www.ianchadwick.com/tequila/rsa.htm

We have as always our good friend from 2OceansVibe to thank for sourcing the whereabouts of the fine gentleman who supplies La Muerte. So contact Jeremy on 083 368 1069 or mail him at jeremy@agavemuerte.com if you’d like to place an order – and be quick because your bottle o’ death may soon become a collectors item – much like a first edition copy of a future classic.

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Tags: 2oceansvibe, agave karoo, agave meurte, agave plants, karoo agave, la meurte, Moral Fibre, muerte agave, Seth Rotherham, South Africa, south african tequila, tequila