Taste of success

S. Florida restaurant has a sweet secret to its exclusive tequila.

You won’t find Louie Bossi’s Patrón Reposado tequila anywhere but at the Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton restaurants. Sommelier Ervin Machado, alongside Patrón master distiller Francisco Alcaraz and Patron microbiologist Mariana Sanchez, spent 11 months creating this tequila.

The tequila was made in Oaxaca and Jalisco, Mexico. Machado spent three weeks in the factory, testing multiple batches to achieve the flavors he was imagining. He caramelized blue agave to give it a sweet flavor before churning it over riverbed rocks, rather than shredding it. The riverbed method squeezes the agave and doesn’t bruise it.

“What [method] we chose to use is called ‘tahona,’ ” Machado says. “Picture a big ball that moves very slowly. So the riverbed is filled with [agave] and then you have a ball ... kind of like a tire or wheel, continuously pressing very gently [on the agave].” Machado says this method produces juice that is much cleaner than if it were squeezed with a machine.

The tequila was aged for 180 days in a French oak barrel rather than in an American or Hungarian oak. Machado says the Limousin French barrel they used is longer and darker than American and Hungarian barrels, so it adds much color to the tequila in a short amount of time, and makes it more flavorful.

“That’s why our tequila looks almost like an añejo,” he says, “and you can taste some of that wood also, so you get the cinnamon spices … without having to spend that much time in oak.”

Machado made one barrel, or about 252 bottles of this Patrón tequila, only to be sold at Louie Bossi’s Ristorante.

It’s now served on the rocks and in the reposado margaritas at both locations, and will be available until supplies run out.

Sommelier Ervin Machado caramelized blue agave to give it a sweet flavor before churning it over riverbed rocks, rather than shredding it.

ERVIN MACHADO/COURTESY Making the tequila: “The riverbed is filled with [agave] and then you have a ball ... kind of like a tire or wheel, continuously pressing very gently [on the agave],” says sommelier Ervin Machado.