Luna’s Tacos & Tequila’s beverage program is unlike most Mexican restaurants, and here's why

A little over four years ago, a dream team headed by Brian Siefried of Wing Shack fame and Ely and Sam Corliss, the folks who keep Greeley rocking out at the Moxi Theater, took a city already saturated with good Mexican food by storm with their gourmet street taco concept restaurant, Luna’s Tacos & Tequila on the 9th Street Plaza.

When you’re offering menu items as diverse as tacos topped with adobo honey shrimp, mushrooms drizzled with cashew crema or seared pork belly with onion escabeche spiked with mustard seed salsa, it’s a safe bet that the tequila program will be equally experimental.

Luna’s tequila program was robust from the start, but instead of flinging wide the doors to the more recognizable tequila world — names like Patron and Sauza are what’s typically on people’s tongues — Sam has been honing in on a niche market of producers.

That’s a good thing for tequila lovers with both new and acquired tastes.

“We started with about 75 tequilas and now have up to 330 bottles of agave spirits on the shelves,” Sam said. “We just did a mass exodus of diffuser tequilas to focus on supporting smaller brands that are making tequila the traditional way in Mexico.”

Diffuser, or “mixto,” tequilas are produced from about 51% blue agave, the plant from which the liquor is derived, and then are pumped full of additives, including sugar and chemicals to make it taste better and cut production methods.

Instead, Sam Corliss sources small batch tequila from producers like Arette, a 30-year old offshoot of the Orendain family distillery in Tequila, Mexico, a town in the state of Jalisco near the Tequila Volcano. The Orendain family is one of the three oldest tequila-producing families in Mexico — they’ve been producing the liquor since 1900.

The tequila they make is 100 percent blue agave with no additives.

Tequila is regulated by the Mexican government: similar to champagne and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, it is protected to preserve where the product originates. Tequila production is limited to five Mexican states: Jalisco, Nayarit, Tamaulipas, MIchoacán and Guanajuato.

The Orendain distillery uses spring water from a well that draws from the Tequila Volcano. The volcano has been extinct for 5,000 years, but because of it, the valley where the distillery lies has mineral rich soil loaded with nutrients.

Eduardo Orendain, Jr is 5th generation; he works with his father, Eduardo Orendain, Sr. and his uncle Jaime. Whether it’s by tradition or happenstance, all the men in the Orendain family are named either Eduardo or Jaime.

In the early days, there was no branding, Eduardo said. “People showed up at the distilleries with their glass jars to get filled up with Orendain tequila. Right next door to us is the Sauza distillery.”

In the 1920s, the brand became officially registered with bottles and labels and the Orendains started marketing their tequila. By the 1950s, Eduardo’s grandfather and great-grandfather built a second distillery which is still operating. It produces about 20 different tequila brands.

Eduardo and his father oversee the newer Arette brand. As with the Orendain brand, “We do everything from field to bottle. We grow our own agave fields, which gives us full control over how we grow naturally without chemicals or additives, and the product is additive-free certified,” Eduardo said. He emphasized that there are no additives, flavors or colorants in any of the family brand’s tequilas.

But as small batch producers, the flavors will change from batch to batch, he noted. This takes account of the terroir, which, like wine-growing, plays a significant part in the flavor profile.

The difference between grapes and the plant that tequila is made from is that the blue agave species takes between 7-8 years to mature. The amount of moisture received in any given year and the temperatures fluctuate, making it impossible to have any batch identical, he said.

“There is no one-fits-all like grapes because it takes years for the plant to mature. It’s more that one batch may be greener, have more minerals, it’s more fruity, sweeter, creamier or peppery. We’re doing the same distilling process; the only thing that’s changing is the agave,” Eduardo said.

After harvesting, the agave plant heart — the piña, which looks like a large, woody pineapple — has its tough outer leaves chopped off and is slowly cooked. It’s first roasted in a brick oven for 48 hours, followed by 12 hours in an autoclave, similar to a steel pressure cooker. A roller mill extracts the “mosto,” or juice, which is open-air fermented with a natural proprietary house yeast in stainless steel and then concrete vats. Double distillation in Alembic pot stills with copper coils follows.

The two distillations produce a pure blanco — or silver — tequila. If the liquor rests in barrels for 2 months to a year, it’s labeled “reposado.” Añejo is barrel-aged for 1 to 3 years; if a tequila is Extra Añejo, it will have aged for 3 years and longer.

Arette produced 900,000 bottles last year: 80% was blanco and 10-15% reposado. These two styles are most popular because they’re used for cocktails; the añejo are typically drunk neat in small tasting glasses.

Luna’s is doing something different from all the other taco and tequila restaurants, Sam noted. “We are only serving the best of the best of these small, small batch tequilas, and we’re using the Arette brand even though better known products, like Patron, are one-third of the cost,” she said.

That’s something Eduardo Orendain, Jr. is grateful for, acknowledging that Luna’s highlights family run producers who haven’t sold out.

“The distillery has been in the family since my great-grandfather started it, and they see it like it’s something that was gifted. It’s not our own — it was passed on to us generation to generation. What right do I have to sell it? It’s like, if I give you a watch, you wouldn’t sell it, it’s a gift from your grandfather and you don’t have a right to sell it. My grandfather is 85 and he goes to the distillery every day. He threatens to come back after he’s gone to haunt us if we sell it,” Eduardo chuckles. “My grandfather, he says, ‘if you want to take the money and run, get out now and start your own company.’”

Sam Corliss said Luna’s moves through about ten cases of Arette tequila per week. The liquor is used in all the house margaritas, along with fresh, hand-squeezed lime juice and organic agave nectar. Those three are the only ingredients.

“With 330 distinct bottles, we have anything for the palate,” Sam said.

Luna’s tequilas are also used for cocktails: their Oaxacan old fashioned is made with aged tequila and mezcal, which lends the drink a smokey flavor. But mostly, aged tequila is served in one-ounce pours for sipping or shooting.

“We want people to compare and contrast, explore and go outside their comfort zone,” she explained, which is why the restaurant reduced pours down from an initial 1.5 ounces.

Lime and salt aren’t necessary for a good tequila tasting, although Luna’s serves mezcal with an orange or traditional worm salt (sal de gusano) or cricket salt (sal de chapulin). Sam said that one is popular, and it’s high in protein (thanks to the crickets), even as a snack. They also have a chocolate sugar to pair with sweeter tequilas.

As a 100% plant-based liquor, tequila is considered healthier than other liquors. Corliss said they’ve found that the sugars from the plant metabolize quicker than the ones in whiskey or rums — Luna’s claims the tequila they serve is 98% hangover-proof.

“Our juice is hand-squeezed, we go through thousands and thousands of limes a week at Luna’s, and there’s no artificial flavors, no sweet and sour mix. That lack of preservatives makes a difference in our cocktails as far as sugar content,” she said.

It’s part of the reason why Sam said they choose to spend more to support a smaller production family.

“We believe in what Arette is doing; we also believe in what our clientele is putting into their bodies.”

Hours: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.Sunday – Thursday | 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday – Saturday

Where: 806 9th Street, Greeley, CO 80631

Contact: 970-673-8509 | lunastacos.com

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