1 So the bus takes us to the outskirts of town, then down a dusty back alley where I was sure we'd be attacked by some banditos. Opened a ricketly old wooden gate and entered .. quite a nice back yard.
2 Flowers in the foreground, the "factory" in the back
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4 A stack of Blue Agave fruit (it's not cactus, even though everyone think that's what Tequila is made from)
5 Here's the Blue Agave waiting for processing
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7 First, the Agave fruit is baked in this outdoor stone oven.
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9 It's then cut/split into smaller chunks
10 And then mashed by hand, the Mexican equivalent to wine making by crushing grapes with the feet
11 The resulting juice is fermented by a secret process known only to the family. No chemicals, no preservatives, no pesky sterilization.
12 It then distilled (twice we hope, the second removing the methanol that usually results from backyard stills)
13 The raw licquor drips out of the bamboo pipe into the barrel, which is heated by a fire below. Somehow, it makes its way into the large plastic keg on the right via the pop bottle.
14 The "showroom"
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16 No Mexican backyard is complete without a chicken or two running around.
