The Lost Explorer Jalisco Destilería

Agave

The Lost Explorer Tequila is made with Blue Agave grown in the sun-soaked volcanic El Arenal / Los Valles in the lowlands region of Jalisco, within 10 kilometres (~6 miles) of the distillery in the town of El Arenal near Amatitán. It takes six to seven years for the agave to reach maturity, during which time the plant absorbs minerals from the rich volcanic soil, imparting distinctive mineral notes to the tequila's flavour profile.

Enrique de Colsa specifically chose Lowlands agave due to the region's climate, altitude and terroir, which all impact the final character and flavour profile of The Lost Explorer Tequila. He works with just three select farmers to ensure the quality and consistency of the agave.

Harvest

Enrique personally selects only fully mature, ripe agaves for harvesting, collaborating closely with local jimadores to guarantee quality. The jimadores first skilfully slice off the agave's long penca leaves using a 'coa' to reveal the piña, the heart of the agave. The trimmed leaves are left to compost in the field, helping enrich the soil for replanting.

Cooking

The harvested piñas are chopped into halves or quarters before being loaded into hornos de mampostería (brick ovens) with a 10-ton capacity, where they are steam-cooked for 18 hours and then slow-baked by the residual heat for a further 24 hours. The agave are then left to cool for another 24 hours.

Milling

The cooked piñas are shredded, and their fibres washed of their sweet agave juices (aguamiel) using a roller mill and water drawn from the distilleries' deep well. The agave fiber passes through the mill four times and the target is for just 1.5 to 2% sugar remaining in the bagasse after milling.

Fermentation

The sweet agave juice is fermented with a controlled amount of agave fibre in open-topped stainless steel tanks using champagne yeast, over three to four days, to produce an alcoholic mosto.

Distillation

Enrique de Colsa oversees the distillation process with the mosto first distilled in small 1,300-litre capacity stainless-steel pot stills steam heated by internal copper coils. The spirit produced is then redistilled in smaller 800-litre stainless-steel pot stills, also with copper steam coils.

Bottling

The distillate from the second distillation is diluted with purified water to produce The Lost Explorer Tequila at 40% alc./vol. bottling strength. Importantly, The Lost Explorer is additive free – without the addition of glycerine, sugar
based syrups, oak extract, or caramel colour – all of which are used in lesser tequilas.

Each batch (average 1,200 litres) is chill chill-filtered at 41-43% alc./vol. to ensure clarity before being reduced to the 40% bottling strength ready to fill the bespoke bottles, made locally in Mexico using over 55% recycled crystal glass scraps. Each bottle is sealed with natural, fully biodegradable wax made from beeswax and vegan wax resins sourced from indigenous communities in Oaxaca and Coahuila.