Jose Cuervo 2013 Proximo Spirits took over US distribution of Jose Cuervo from Diageo, which had managed it since 1997. In 1758, Don Jose Antonio de Cuervo was issued a land grant by King Ferdinand VI of Spain in the town of Tequila, Jalisco. Here his family founded the Taberna de Cuervo, the farm where they would cultivate and harvest the flowering blue agave plant, a water-retaining plant found in central Mexico that is distilled to create tequila. The first Vino Mezcal de Tequila de Jose Cuervo was made in 1795, after Don Jose Antonio de Cuervo's son Jose María Guadalupe de
Agave americana flavored with the very pungent mezcal worm. "Mezcal" and "tequila", although also produced from agave plants, are different from "pulque" in their technique for extracting the sugars from the heart of the plant, and in that they are distilled spirits. In "mezcal" and "tequila" production, the sugars are extracted from the "piñas" (or hearts) by heating them in ovens, rather than by collecting "aguamiel" from the plant's cut stalk. Thus, if one were to distill "pulque", it would not be a form of "mezcal", but rather a different drink. Agave nectar is marketed as a natural form of sugar with