4 Things Every Writer Should Know About José Cuervo
Author Ted Genoways shares four things all writers should know about José Cuervo from his research on the Tequila Wars.
1. He’s a real guy
If you’re like me, you may assume that José Cuervo is a marketing invention—like Juan Valdez or Dos Equis’s “Most Interesting Man in the World.” In fact, Cuervo was not only real but arguably the most important change-maker in the history of Mexican spirits. He was born in 1869 in the foothills outside the small town of Tequila—yes, a real place—to a family of agave-growers and distillers.
In fact, his family had been perfecting the art of tequila-making for more than a century before José was born, when his ancestors helped establish what would become the world's oldest tequila company—essentially inventing the category as we know it today. The Cuervo family's interest in reaching American drinkers showed early when they became the first tequila producer to export their spirits to the United States in 1852, decades before José himself would take the helm.
When José took over the business in 1900, he transformed his family’s distillery into a massive, multi-national business that won acclaim around the world and eventually earned the ire of the U.S. government. (During wartime prohibition imposed after we entered World War I, Cuervo was officially declared “an enemy of the United States.”) His travails during the Mexican Revolution also put him face-to-face with Pancho Villa and President Venustiano Carranza.
It’s a fascinating tale but one that had never been told before I started my research—and I almost missed it, too, because I had made some wrong assumptions. As writers, we have to remind ourselves to ask the most basic questions, to not be afraid to look foolish or ill-informed. Often, those simple questions lead to complex answers—and readers will share your pleasure in learning unexpected stories behind names and brands they thought they knew.
2. His story was nearly lost
Even once you’ve found a great subject, piecing together research is often extremely hard. In the case of José Cuervo, many important records of his life were destroyed. Cuervo’s hometown of Tequila was burned by revolutionaries four times during his years of running his business. The city of Guadalajara—where Cuervo built his company headquarters and distribution offices—was burned five times. In 1914, Cuervo stood trial as “an enemy of the revolution” on the basis of just two letters that he had sent to his nephew (a lieutenant colonel in the federal army) allowing him to encamp soldiers on his property. After that, Cuervo was understandably careful about putting anything on paper.
So just finding any documentary evidence was a major challenge and required some research creativity. I found tax records and land deeds in government files. I found stories about public events in the national newspaper archive at UNAM in Mexico City. But the most important records came from autobiographical writings by his niece (who, it turns out, was raised by Cuervo and his wife, Ana González Rubio) and from family records maintained in secret by Cuervo’s rivals—the Sauza family. By being forced to triangulate, I came to see Cuervo through the eyes of his closest confidants and competitors. It may have been a different story that he would have told about himself, but I was able to keep his story from being lost entirely.
3. He wasn’t just a tequila maker
When I started researching Cuervo’s life, I was focused fairly narrowly on his business ventures, particularly his tequila distillery. There was rich material there—patents for a masonry oven invented by his in-laws; a new, more efficient still invented by his brother; Cuervo’s own trademarks for labels as he became one of the first tequila makers to offer bottles for individual sale. But I soon realized that his larger contributions were in building distribution infrastructure and in marketing.
Cuervo was instrumental in convincing the Southern Pacific Railroad to lay tracks from the western edge of Guadalajara to Tequila. He led a dam-building project on Lake Chapala that brought electricity to the city and surrounding villages. To make all of those large-scale projects possible, Cuervo was deeply involved in politics. He was part of the inner circle of President Porfirio Díaz, helped elect Manuel Cuesta Gallardo as governor of Jalisco, and was even briefly the speaker of the state congress. Just as importantly, his niece’s writings provide crucial insight into Cuervo as a man. He was a patient and loving father figure to her, taking her on regular horseback rides throughout the countryside surrounding Tequila and nursing her through childhood fevers. He was also a soft-spoken and attentive husband who made his wife a central part of his business operations and trusted her to build crucial social alliances.
By seeing Cuervo as more than a tequila maker, I came to understand him as a full-rounded person—and, ironically, I came to understand his business decisions in a more complete way. He was careful with his words, strategic in his land acquisitions, cautious about sharing information with more than a few trusted allies. By coming to see Cuervo as a thoughtful, observant person, I better understood his meticulous approach as a businessman. This careful, methodical approach would prove fundamental to a family business that has now passed through 11 generations, with each adding their own innovations allowing the company to grow. One of his nieces, Guadalupe "Lupe" Gallardo, founded Gran Centenario. One of his nephews, Juan Beckmann Gallardo, ran export distribution from Tijuana and saw the growth opportunity in marketing the margarita to Americans. And José’s commitment to the town of Tequila has been carried forward by the current owners as they have massively invested in the community.
As writers, we have to guard against drawing our focus too narrowly. We want our subjects to live and breathe—and to do that sometimes requires allowing other facets of their personalities, even their quirks and rough edges, to emerge. Also, flashing forward to see their legacy can help to focus and shape the narrative.
4. He died before his time
When we sit down to map out a narrative, we look for a satisfying beginning, middle, and end. But often, real life isn’t like that. The first decade that José Cuervo spent at the helm of his business was all about building—distilleries, railroads, dams, electrical towers, and the political connections to make them possible. The second decade was all about trying to protect those projects from the ravages of the Mexican Revolution and to just stay alive, as many of his neighbors and family members were killed. As the revolution was winding down and he saw the opportunity to rebuild his business by smuggling tequila into the United States at the start of Prohibition, Cuervo suddenly died. It’s rumored that he was poisoned—but he wasn’t even the target. (His outspoken brother Carlos was a congressman and had made many powerful enemies.) So the story was cut short, too.
For the book’s epilogue, I described how Cuervo’s brothers, without his calming influence, went to war with the Sauza family, but I chose not to go into that whole complicated story. This book was about José Cuervo—and, without him, it just didn’t seem possible to go on. That doesn’t mean that the story of the wild era of Prohibition isn’t fascinating, it’s just another tale entirely. It’s one I might choose to tell from the perspective of the Sauza brothers, Eladio and Luís, in fact. It’s a story that I might divide between the borderlands with the U.S. and the tumult back in Tequila. So, sometimes, one unfinished narrative gives you the start of another. It’s okay to tell yourself (and your reader): That’s a story for another time.
Check out Ted Genoways' Tequila Wars here:
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