Liquid Gold

foreign [Music] presented by the cautious awareness project in conjunction with Torah anytime today I am joined by Rabbi Akiva nihaus director of kosher's operations at the CRC and rabbinic coordinator of liquor is that it got it rabbinic coordinator of liquor at the CRC okay we got it right thank you again for joining us today we are going to discuss another alcohol liquor topic and that is tequila first of all tell us what tequila is for those who don't know so tequila is a product which is a which is fermented and distilled in Mexico it has to be a certain region of Mexico and it's made from a cactus called agave and it's very very prevalent in that region it grows very well and they harvest these Cactus they chop off the points and they start their heart and they cook it add yeast or don't add yeast and they ferment it and then it's distilled into a distilled product so it's not an aged product per se but it's like a vodka but it's made from this Cactus called agave and it's an alcoholic drink alcohol obviously um the cactus itself is doesn't present katra's concerns correct um the fermentation process nope also no cash is concerned what what Tasha's concerns could there be with a tequila uh can I go into the store and buy Anita kilo off the shelf what are the parameters so it's so interesting how we're having this conversation because I would say is 10 15 years ago no one drank tequila tequila is like some other thing like I said it's a Mexican product and in the past few years it's become more and more prevalent and again it's only made in Mexico only made in Mexico okay and I don't know what happened it exploded and more and more consumers are drinking we get more and more questions which said we got to look into it so we actually contacted the conscious Professionals in Mexico to find out what what is it what are the cautious issues and we came out they came up a very interesting thing and that is that tequila can be divided into different classes Blanco means that it's it's clear Anejo and Reposado means that it's aged somewhat and the agent in barrels okay so theoretically they could use wine barrel aging but let's assume let's put that on the side for now we came across something so fascinating and that is that first of all some of them add other alcohol day-to-day supplement it that alcohol we have no idea where it's from um so but then we found something more fascinating and that is by law they're allowed to add up to one percent by volume of glycerin now glycerin could easily be made from non-kosher sources it could be an animal bases almost surely not Kosher or vegetable based vegetable based um and till now we assumed that there wasn't being used so much they can add some sugar together and what we came across was the most fascinating thing during covid tequila consumption exploded in fact it was a shortage of agave of these cactuses really I don't know what it was people were home they were on their time on their heads exactly well there's a problem now because by law in order to call it the sanejo represado needs to abh a certain amount of time and they weren't able to keep up with production so they started cutting corners and you know maybe this product needed to be aged I don't know four to six years they didn't have time they were simply had so they supplemented with glycerin glycerin gives a mouth feel it certain flavor it compensated for the lack of Aging really glycerin is more of a sweeter has a sweeter that's weird right exactly but they needed to doctor it up somehow so they doctored it with glue and by law they're allowed to up to a certain up to a certain amount but well as soon as you're glycerin this the alarms go off and it became the Muskegon told us that it's become more and more prevalent so right away we have this conscious concern of tequila which is this a great example of someone who changes over time right you know who actually you always have to stay on your stay on stay on your toes exactly because you never know that's very interesting that's a great point you know and and so we like so I have been on my another hat that I wear as the chairman of the aqua liquor committee and we had a meeting about this to discuss it and we actually changed our recommendation for tequila and that is that first of all it has to be CRT certified which is the name of a trade organization which sort of helps monitor that they're keeping the laws the way they're supposed to be is that a Mexican organization CRT it has to be 100 Agave which means they're not supplementing and the CRT ensures that that it's that correct correct and they're writing 100 of the Avi um but then we got to this thing about glycerin and there's a quark in Mexican law that Blanco the Silver Tequila cannot have any glycerin added only the age Tequilas so at this point we're saying is that you should think twice about you could sue me those those age Tequilas because of this glycerin concern so if I go into a store I see a Blanco tequila I'm okay you're okay if it's uh if it's 100 agave and CRT certified and CRT certified as well that's correct uh is there tequila with kosher supervision there are there are a few and it's getting more and more it's a bit challenging in Mexico to actually get down to the plants and certified okay and uh and as far as the other variety the Aged varieties age varieties it's it's a problem now it's it's actually one percent should tell you that it's so minimal that it could be bottled um we're certainly not going to recommend something which has glycerin potentially non-kosher and that's what we're saying is ideally you should definitely look for something with harshkosh right right right okay any final comments on this part on this topic yeah sure uh one final thing is that there are other varieties of tequila like crystallino which means they add other flavorings stay away sure any flavored Tequilas correct unless it has stay away correct do you have do you have a list of uh acceptable tequilas on the CRC liquor list we do and in fact just a couple weeks ago we I did research and we found well over 100 Tequilas that are Kosher certified okay our viewers who are tequila uh you know aficionados they just breathed the sigh of relief they have what to choose from but uh thank you for wait wait we didn't talk we didn't talk about the worm oh okay the worm this is that is a common thing people is first of all is there such a thing as a worm in tequila that's a great question because it's a mistake I'll tell you why because a worm can only be put like we said it's it's highly regulated a worm cannot be put in Tequila where would that even come from that there are Mexican Tequilas that are made with a worm so it's not a tequila it's called Mezcal miscal is much looser regulated and for some reason as a sign of Purity they put this worm in there to show that it's like super approved so super pure yeah I don't know what it's what it is for sure forget the worm it's because Mezcal can be made in literally in the backyard and it's it's so it's like so craft like we saw by beer and it can have these all these guys together and believe it or not there's something called pechuga mesco now pachuga is Mexican for chicken okay so I don't know what it is but they actually put a raw chicken in the vet yes when they're making the drink I don't know what it's about but pachuga Mezcal would almost serves you some kind of flavor or something I guess so and that's certainly not Kosher and as we know it would not only affect that particular mascara would affect anything made on the same Calum same equipment are there any kosher missed calls so very few I just actually came someone sent me something that recently there is a mascot I don't haven't looked into yet but very few and far between so that's good to know here we thought that this tequila was a worm exactly okay great thank you again for joining us appreciate it [Music] foreign 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