Words by Theodora Sutcliffe
Photography by Jaime Viceversa
When Enrique de Colsa set out to create Lost Explorer's first tequila, Blanco No. 1, he had just two priorities in mind. "I wanted a small distillery that did not produce tequila for third parties so that I had full control and the NOM was not widely used," he says. "And I wanted to be in the lowlands, because in the 30 years that I've been making tequila, I've always been in the highlands."
De Colsa made his name as the master distiller of Don Julio tequila. After working alongside Don Julio Gonzalez for the last few years of his career, he spearheaded innovations including whiskey-barrel ageing and Cristalino, the groundbreaking clear añejo. Having parted ways with Diageo in 2020, he's now the creative force behind Lost Explorer's tequilas, with an ownership stake in the company too.
And, with no defined brief as to what to produce, de Colsa has been free to create something pure yet distinctive, with the herbal, mineral profile of a classic lowland tequila. "It is slightly citrus, but I really didn't want too much citrus," he says. "All blancos have a spicy, peppery finish and in Blanco No. 1 that spicy final note is more cinnamon. I love it."
Even as a small child growing up in Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico, de Colsa's palate stood out. His father was a chemical engineer, working on flavours and aromas for soft drinks, but it was five-year-old Enrique that his mother called to sniff the milk to check if it was still good to drink.
Rather than follow in his father's footsteps, however, de Colsa trained as an industrial engineer. "In college, I started to work in a factory that prepared equipment for liquids," he recalls. "That's when I started to learn about the process, why a filter is different for tequila than for gasoline."
From factories that worked with liquids, de Colsa moved into bottling liquids, where he honed his sensory abilities. "In the bottle development business, I had not only tequila customers but perfume customers," he says. "We needed to interact with the perfumer to understand what kind of bottle to design." He acquired the language of flavours and aromas alongside the art of bottle creation, skills that would stand him in good stead in the world of high-end spirits.
In the early 90s, with his children growing up, de Colsa, by now a seasoned engineer and manager, felt it was time for the family to escape Mexico City's noise, traffic and pollution and live somewhere quieter. "The owner of Tequila Cazadores, who was my customer, offered me the chance to move and run his distillery," he recalls. Two years after making the move to Jalisco, he was working alongside Don Julio Gonzalez.
After leaving Diageo in 2020, de Colsa had two years of gardening leave which, coupled with the pandemic, left plenty of space for planning. "I wanted to make my own tequila," he says. "I selected what to do and where to do it, but I was planning just for myself."
De Colsa knew Tanya Clarke, Lost Explorer's CEO, from her time at Diageo, and the pair had been friendly for more than a decade. They met for dinner in Mexico City; he talked about his plans to create his own tequila and she talked about Lost Explorer's mezcal business; but nothing came of their conversation as de Colsa was still on gardening leave and Lost Explorer was still focused exclusively on mezcal. Then, a year later, Clarke called to invite him to Oaxaca. "I was thinking she only wanted to offer me a role as an advisor or consultant," de Colsa says. "But the great news was that they wanted to enter the tequila market."
Lost Explorer's approach to sustainability held particular appeal in a sector where agave monocropping is destroying ecosystems and fuelling the climate crisis. "They do a very ecological job: working with the community and poor people, collecting rainwater to save water," de Colsa says. "They drive things forward to maintain the world as we want it, because that is the future."
And, best of all, Clarke was happy to allow de Colsa to pursue his vision. "The only restriction was that I had to try three or four different profiles and then we would select one we wanted," he says. "I was working for about seven months in two different distilleries using different types of cooking-both were in the lowlands-and then at the end we selected this one."
Central to de Colsa's tequila is his absolute perfectionism, which does not necessarily entail PR-friendly bells and whistles such as tahona mills. The agave must be harvested at the exact right time-not too early, and not too late. Everything from harvesting technique to how long you wait before removing the leaves, when and how you cut the piña, how much of the piña you discard before cooking, and, of course, how long you cook the pieces for helps shape the final product. "When you do everything well, the result is good," de Colsa says.
Lost Explorer is made at the El Magnifico distillery. The agave cooks in a brick oven for around three days and goes through a one-step mechanical mill, with the bagaso returned four times. It's distilled in two pot stills, one 1,400-litre and one 900-litre, in batches of 1,200–1,500 litres, with the heads and tails discarded. The first distillation emerges at around 24–26% alc./vol. and the second distillation at around 55–59%. Finally, it's diluted and chill-filtered twice.
Lost Explorer Blanco No. 1 is, as the name suggests, the first in a series of tequilas. "I'm pretty sure that the next one is going to be from the same distillery-a reposado in the middle of next year," de Colsa says. "We are already working with the barrels."
His perfect way to serve it? "Drink it neat in a nice Riedel tequila glass. Taking care that is not warm."
And he's excited for the journey. "My personal feeling with Lost Explorer is that I'm glad to work with a company that shares my values," he says. "Not only the quality, but the way we maintain sustainability: 50% of the glass in the bottle is from recycled glass, and the cover of the closure is biodegradable natural beeswax."
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