Cinco de Mayo calls for ice cold tequila cocktails and crispy tacos! Newport Beach-based bartender Inga Tantisalidchai has teamed up with TacoTuesday.com and local hospitality maven Catalin Ayala to create specialty reposado tequila cocktails.
The group chose to focus on reposado for the feature because of one key tequila brand’s often forgotten female-led past. Gabriela Romo de la Peña and her two sisters modernized the Herradura Tequila distillery and launched Herradura añejo tequila in 1962. The añejo specification requires the tequila to be aged for over a year in oak barrels. Herradura’s recipe is aged for just over two years.
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Following the success of the añejo, Romo de la Peña launched the world’s first ever reposado in 1974. Reposados can be aged a month to a year in wooden, typically oak, barrels. Herradura’s reposado is aged for 11 months.
See Also: 9 Tequila and Mezcal Cocktail Recipes for Cinco de Mayo
“When we started to look deeper into Herradura’s history, we learned that the brand has an amazing history of empowering females,” says Pamela Waitt, founder of TacoTuesday.com. “Gabriela Romo de la Peña’s story is one we plan to shine a spotlight on while uplifting all of the amazing female bartenders we know throughout California & Texas.”
Check out Tantisalidchai and Ayala’s specialty reposado tequila recipes in their Instagram video below. Tantisalidchai is best known as head bartender at OLEA, however she's also an award-winning competitive mixologist competing in Woodford’s Manhattan Experience and Espolon Tequila’s Cocktail Fights, among others.
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Herradura debuted its extra añejo tequila in 1995, created by the brand’s first female Master Distiller, María Teresa Lara López. The extra añejo style is aged for just over four years. López also created the Coleccion De La Casa series with Herradura Selección Suprema, the luxurious top shelf iteration of the brand’s tequila.
The partnership for this video campaign was put together by Babes Behind The Bar and TacoTuesday.com. The group Babes Behind The Bar hosts events to empower female bartenders around California and works to be an advocate for women in the industry.
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When planning your Cinco de Mayo celebration, head to TacoTuesday.com to find the best Taco Tuesday specials in your area. The site has a database of restaurants around the country that offer taco deals.
Photography by: Christopher Alvarenga / Unsplash
