José Cuervo or a small distillery on a tequila tour from Guadalajara
Every tequila day from Guadalajara stops at a distillery, and the tours split into two camps. Some visit La Rojeña, José Cuervo's house in Tequila town; others take you to smaller distilleries whose bottles rarely travel. This page explains what each visit gives you and which tour goes where.
Two kinds of distillery visit
The famous name gives you a polished visit, a brand you already know and a museum close by on one tour. The small houses swap that for a plainer setting where you stand nearer the equipment and talk with the people who run it.
Neither choice is wrong. It depends on whether you came for a name you recognize or for bottles you will not find in the shop at home.
Price plays a part too. The Cuervo-focused days on this site are among the dearer ones, while the cheapest and the best-rated tours both visit smaller houses.
How tequila is made, in brief
Tequila is made from blue agave, a plant that grows for years before a jimador cuts away its spiky leaves. What stays is the piña, the heavy heart of the plant, and that is what goes to the distillery.
The piñas are cooked to turn their starch into sugar, either slowly in ovens or faster in large pressure cookers called autoclaves. They are then crushed to free the sweet juice, which ferments in tanks.
The fermented liquid is distilled twice. The spirit from the second run is blanco tequila, and time in oak barrels turns it into reposado or añejo, as our guide to tasting blanco, reposado and añejo explains.
Every distillery makes its own choices at each step, and the guide on your tour will show you theirs. Seeing two houses in one day lets you spot where they differ.
La Rojeña, the José Cuervo visit
La Rojeña stands in Tequila town. The tour 4 listing describes it as the oldest distillery, making tequila for over 200 years, and José Cuervo is the best-known name in the business.
Estación Turística GDL at ~$150 builds its day around this house. You see the agave fields, then tour La Rojeña with a tasting, and finish with free time in Tequila.
The GetYourGuide listing runs 9 hours with pickup available and rates 4.8 from 51 reviews. On Viator the same operator shows 7 hours, hotel pickup from selected central hotels and 4.5 from 200+ reviews.
For the José Cuervo house itself
Estación Turística GDL's day to La Rojeña, with agave fields, a distillery tour and tasting, and free time in Tequila. Food and drinks are extra, and so are tips.
Value is the weak spot. Food and drinks are not included on GetYourGuide, nor are tips, so you pay a high fare for a fairly short list. Our tequila tour prices guide puts it next to the other five.
The José Cuervo Express day at ~$289 visits La Rojeña and Mundo Cuervo too. It adds entry to the Centro Cultural Juan Beckmann Gallardo museum and a ride on the train, which our train or van page covers in detail.
The craft houses on the other tours
The Agave Experience at ~$149 spends two hours at Tequila Cava de Oro with a Tequila Master. Later it visits a second distillery in Amatitán, with eight tastings of premium tequila and mezcal in a VIP cellar along the way.
Destino Agave at ~$59 takes you to a craft distillery that shows traditional, semi-industrial and industrial processes. That makes it a good choice if you want to see how methods differ under one roof.
KanKan Tours at ~$96 gives an hour to Destilería La Alborada, entry included, after a morning at the Guachimontones. Our pyramids and tequila guide describes the rest of that day.
GDL Experiences at ~$42 visits an artisanal tequila factory. Its tasting is the shortest of the six, because the day ends with a long stop at Cantaritos El Güero.
What each side gives up
Choose the big house and you trade intimacy for polish. The visit is well organized and the brand is easy to find again later, yet you share it with many other visitors.
Choose a small house and the setting is plainer, with fewer people around the stills. Guides tend to talk more freely about how they work, and the bottles in the shop are ones you cannot easily buy abroad.
There is a middle path as well. Every tour passes through Tequila town, so even on a craft-house day you can walk past La Rojeña in your free time and buy a Cuervo bottle in a shop nearby.
- José Cuervo at La Rojeña: tours 4 and 6
- Two craft houses with a Tequila Master: tour 1
- A craft distillery showing three methods: tour 2
- One distillery after the pyramids: tour 3
- An artisanal factory before a party stop: tour 5
How to choose
If José Cuervo is the reason you came, tour 4 goes straight there and tour 6 adds the train. If you want to compare styles, tour 1 visits two houses and tour 2 shows several methods in one place.
Whichever you pick, you will walk past the big names anyway. Every tour gives free time in town, where José Cuervo and Sauza signs line the streets, as our page on a few hours in Tequila town shows.
Visitors must be at least 18 to drink in Mexico. Distilleries pour small samples, but two houses in a day add up, so eat before the first one.