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 Herradura Part of the legal problems stemmed from the sale of shares to non-Mexican entities. In 2004, Herradura bought back foreign owned shares, making the company 100% Mexican owned again. At this time, the company controlled thirty percent of the Mexican tequila markets behind Jose Cuervo’s forty percent share. However, in 2007 all assets of the company were sold for $USD 776 million to the US-based company Brown-Forman, which produces other alcoholic beverages such as Jack Daniel's, Southern Comfort, Finlandia Vodka and Korbel California Champagne. That same year Herradura was named "best distillery of 2007" by Wine Enthusiast Magazine . Since