English Distillery Gets in Hot Water With Mexican Regulators Over ‘t’Quila’-Flavored Vodka
(Photo: Taplin & Mageean/Facebook)
A distillery based in Yorkshire Dales, England has been forced to rename one of its spirits after dredging up the attention of Mexican tequila regulators.
At the end of last year, The Wensleydale Spirit Company launched its creatively named t’Quila, a potato-based vodka blended with molasses, ginger and lime. Described as “a tango of Yorkshire charm & Mexican flavor,” the spirit was reportedly a best seller before a letter arrived from the British Embassy in Mexico.
Due to protected designation of origin laws, tequila cannot be called “tequila” nor mezcal “mezcal” unless produced in a handful of specific Mexican states. t’Quila hit a little too close to home, and the distillery was urged to rename its spirit to TQ Vodka.
“We argued our corner, but there was no compromise and we had to comply,” owner Chris Taplin told the Richmondshire Today.
“We are a small distillery in the Yorkshire Dales, and we made it clear that while our t’Quila was a flavored vodka we were not trying to pass it off as a real Tequila which has to be made within 60 miles of the town of Tequila in Mexico, not Leyburn in North Yorkshire.”
The Wensleydale Spirit Company is certainly not the first distillery to be hit with a cease and desist letter from Mexican regulators.
Last week, the Tequila Regulatory Council (CRT) won an appeal against Dutch Genquila, a Netherlands-made spirit distilled from genever, botanicals and agave extract. Months earlier, Australia’s Bunsters was forced to rename its bizarrely flavored liqueur line from “Tequila” to the generic “Agave Spirit.”
A few brands have managed to slip through the cracks. UK-based Quarter Distillery recently unveiled a 12% ABV “T/quila” distilled from imported Blue Weber agave. Despite a nearly identical name to Wensleydale’s t’Quila, the spirit is still being marketed and sold as originally announced.
“This time last year we had no idea that we would be in a fight against Mexican officials which had the potential to seriously damage our distillery. At times it seemed absurd that from the middle of the Yorkshire Dales, we had sufficiently ruffled the feathers of people on the other side of the world that they thought it worthwhile to confront us,” said Taplin.
“Still, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and we are now confidently promoting TQ which I think it is fair to say has a back story like no other of our spirits.”
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