[blagave]

I visited Herradura, who makes Seleccion Suprema, Herradura anejo/reposado/blanco,El jimador,Hacienda del cristero, antiguo de herradura, Suave 35 and others.

Herradura is located about 40 minutes outside Guadalajara, there are buses that run back and forth to the facility. I would suggest possible getting a private car, we had a private driver for the day and the cost was about $100. we were able to go to the town of Tequila to see and do other things at our own pace.

Once you arrive at Herradura, you are confronted by an armed security gaurd in front of a very large gate, once you are allowed through the gate, you enter a large courtyard with buildings all around you. The office is to your right to check in for the tour, which is free, but tips are more than welcomed at the end of the tour.
Note: our friend that was with us is in a wheel chair and was unable to take the tour do to the cobble stone paths and the stairs.

The tour starts with some history about Herradura and the property. The walking tour starts with the agave seedling plants and then moves onto the harvested pina's being put into the stone ovens. The tour basically walks you through the entire process from shredding, fermintation, distallation and aging. The distallation is a double distilled process and the reposado is aged in huge wooden vats, while the anejo's are aged in single oak barrels.
One thing that you will notice throughout the tour is the wonderful aroma of agave in the air.

One of my favorite parts of the tour was when we went into the original building that was over a 100 years old and was the actual working facility for the making of tequila. This building has the original tohona wheel and the brick lined fermintation pits along with the copper distilling equipment. The room is all brick and absoultely breath taking.

The last room we went into was the tasting room, which was all brick with a brick barrel ceiling. Here we sampled the tequilas and learned how tequila is to be drank.

The tour lasts about an hour and was very informative, beautiful and very much worth pursuing. There is a store in the courtyard area that sells Herradura tequila and shirts etc. The price seemed to be comparable to other stores that I had visited while in Guadalajara.

I would highly recommend that you continue up the road about 30 minutes to the town of Tequila to vist the Jose Cuervo Facility and the tequila musem

I took a few pictures while there, but have misplaced them, hopefully I can find them and post them soon. Also, I will try and find the name and phone number of our driver, who is also a tour guide. He made our trip wonderful.