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
Tequila, Jalisco the native people and was much like what is called pulque today. By the time the Spanish arrived, the natives had begun to cultivate the plant. The Spanish first considered taking the plant back to Spain but decided to develop it and its product in Mexico. The Spanish introduced distillation to turn the native fermented mescal into what is now known as tequila. The first large-scale distillery was created in 1600 and over the colonial period demand for the drink resulted in some of the oldest, still-operating enterprises in this area such as: “La Riojeña”, founded in 1795; “El Tigre”