TEMECULA – The Aliento a Tequila (The Spirit of Tequila) exhibition opened on Friday, June 21. This exhibit explores and celebrates the landscape, culture, and traditions that gave birth to tequila, Mexico’s national drink. In this series, photographer Joel Salcido includes the original distilleries that founded the industry, as well as several artisanal tequileras committed to the ancestral ways of making tequila from harvest to bottle.
Agave dates to the Aztec civilization as an important crop in Mexico. Since the 1600s, the people of western Mexico have cultivated blue agave from the red volcanic soil that blankets the region, to make what we know as tequila. Salcido traveled across Mexico’s state of Jalisco capturing images of distilleries and artisanal tequileras; blue agave fi
