No, Tequila Is Not the Healthiest Spirit: Assessing the Myths of Agave Spirits Folklore

This article is a part of Agave Spirits Week, a week of content celebrating tequila, mezcal and other distilled spirits crafted from agave. Click here to check out the rest of our Agave Spirits Week content, which focuses on the best distilleries to visit in Mexico, the best agave spirits of the year, unique agave cocktail recipes and more.

Harvesting Blue Weber agave at Rancho ‘El Coyote’, Penjamo, Guanajuato, Mexico (Photo: Lucas Vallecillos / VWPics via AP Images)

Few spirits are plagued by quite as many myths, half-truths and speculation as tequila.

Ever since the spirit skyrocketed to popularity in the late 2010s, it feels as if there’s been a rumor mill working behind the scenes to spread a new, ever-more unlikely narrative year after year. You’re probably familiar with the usual suspects. The notion that tequila acts as a stimulant, or that it contains markedly less sugar than any liquor available on the market.

Others have pushed the limits of believability to suspicious heights. For his part, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has often repeated the claim that tequila — “preferably my own Teremana” — is the best recovery after a tough workout. Without getting too far into the weeds of macho-man self-promotion, let’s just clarify upfront that this is definitely, without qualification, not true under any circumstances. Not to disrespect The Rock, but he’d probably be singing a different tune if he were promoting protein shakes or nutritional vitamins.

However, it’s also not fair to say that all tequila tales are equally untrue. Some are based on a glimmer of reality that’s been misinterpreted through rumors and headlines, while others began as fact, only to be eroded by years of industrialization and mass marketing. So which is which?

We last tackled this topic in 2023, paying close attention to spurious health claims and the talking point that tequila is the only spirit that serves as an upper. This time around, we’ll reevaluate those ideas with up-to-date research that’s been published in the ensuing years, while addressing a handful of other misconceptions that have begun popping up with increasing frequency.

1. ‘The Only Spirit That’s an Upper’ — Fact or Fiction

At some point in their life, every drinker has heard a version of the same story regarding tequila’s inexplicable properties. That tequila is the only spirit that acts as an upper rather than a downer, a stimulant rather than a depressant. Or, just as often, that tequila is the only spirit that doesn’t leave you with a hangover the morning after. Whether these rumors are passed around the dorm room or the dive bar, it always seems as if there’s at least one person present who can attest to their validity. Next thing you know, another round of shots has been ordered to the table guilt-free.

Scientifically and legally speaking, these qualities are pure fiction. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has long classified all forms of consumable alcohol as depressants, and there’s scarcely a researcher or government in the world that would disagree. On paper, it’s safe to say that all liquor bottled at the same alcohol content will have the same effect on the body, whether it’s aged or unaged, or made with agave versus sugarcane or potatoes (more on that later).

But there are reputable insiders who have raised questions. In agave spirits writer Chantal Martineau’s 2020 book, “How the Gringos Stole Tequila,” 13th-generation distiller Marko Karakasevic describes some rather anomalous qualities about the tequila-making process. During distillation, spirits are trimmed of their “heads” and “tails,” leaving behind the “hearts” found inside the bottle. Heads, the first compound released into the still, are heavy in dangerous methanol and acetaldehyde, while tails are diluted with low-alcohol remainders. According to Karakasevic, however, the heads and tails are known to inexplicably flip during tequila production. If true, this would mean that low-alcohol molecules are the first to rise inside the still, potentially (emphasis on the potentially) imbuing different effects even after the heads and tails are trimmed.

“Is it possible that the backward chemical behavior of agave spirits has a rather backward effect on those of us who drink them, imparting a high rather than a low?” Marineau speculates.

The mysterious inverse of tequila distillation has been described by a handful of producers, but otherwise exists only in the realm of anecdote. There isn’t a scientific explanation for the phenomenon, nor concrete proof that it exists across different facilities, stills or agave types. So, take it with a grain of salt. For the time being, it’s safe to conclude that agave isn’t a stimulant based on all available information — but the door is open if researchers want to pick up the thread down the road, technology permitting.

2. A Closer Look at the Health Claims

There are far too many dubious tequila health claims to sum up in a single article. Instead of recapping and debunking them all (no, agave spirits do not cure the flu), we’ll instead take a closer look at two of the most enduring: that tequila contains less sugar than other spirits and that tequila is good for bone health.

By far the most popular is that tequila is a low-sugar alternative. The alleged benefits of tequila are often traced back to agavins, a sweet prebiotic found within the Blue Weber agaves used to distill the spirit. Since agavins are fibrous and non-digestible, they theoretically act as a glucose alternative that doesn’t raise blood sugar. In test trials with mice, agavins have been linked to accelerated weight loss and other beneficial outcomes, including the promotion of healthy gut microbiota and improved gastrointestinal wellness.

Were you to replace your entire sugar intake with agavins, it’s possible — though not scientifically proven — that you might observe some of those results. But that simply isn’t going to be the case for anyone drinking tequila.

Approximately 70% to 85% of tequila brands are said to contain additives, a grab bag of sneaky substances that include glycerin, oak extract, caramel coloring and, most often, sugar-based syrup. The glucose used in sugar-based syrups is particularly potent, so much so that a single drop can radically alter the profile of an entire bottle. All of that’s to say, if additives are present, then any purported benefits of agavins go straight out the window. The same goes for classic tequila cocktails like the margarita and paloma, which usually contain more than enough liqueur and soda to tip the scale toward the unabashedly sweet and sugary. The safest choice is to stick with additive-free brands, even if “healthy” remains a questionable descriptor at best.

Seperate from low-sugar and gastrointestinal health claims is the idea that tequila maintains bone integrity. Once again, this rumor can be traced back to mice. In 2016, scientists at Mexico’s Centre for Research and Advanced Studies investigated whether Blue Weber fructans could be used to cure osteoporosis, otherwise known as brittle bone disease. The results were promising. A sample set of mice treated with Blue Weber over a period of eight weeks demonstrated above-average bone growth and increased production of osteocalcin, a critical protein for bone formation and mineralization.

The findings were spuriously reinterpreted into dozens of headlines that claimed “drinking tequila is good for your bones.” The rumor became so popular that Harvard Health published a piece questioning its validity. In short, agave has never been linked to improved bone health in humans, nor were distilled spirits ever linked to similar outcomes in mice.

Tequila health claims tend to gravitate toward a similar, if loosely defined, popular imagination of Blue Weber. It is, after all, a giant green plant, one unfamiliar to most Americans unless they reside in California or stretches of the Southwest. That giant green status is easily conflated with giant green outcomes, particularly since tequila is a foreign-made spirit steeped in its fair share of regional folklore. Tequila has thus become a sort of blank slate onto which any and every benefit can be applied without much scrutiny. Reduced pain, improved sleep, slowed aging, lower cholesterol… the list goes on. If you ever encounter one of these rumors in the wild, the safest bet is to look up its origins and see if the math actually adds up.

3. [Insert Brand Name Here] Didn’t Make You Do It

When liquor brands reach a certain level of popularity, they sometimes adopt an unofficial rallying cry. For nearly a decade, “Henny Made Me Do It” was an oft-repeated phrase in songs, tweets and hashtags that equated Hennessy Cognac with particularly rowdy nights. In recent years, we’ve seen the exact same thing play out with Casamigos. The slogan “Blame It on the Casamigos” has been thrust into the spotlight, popping up in countless memes and videos that have cemented George Clooney’s tequila brand as the regret-inducing spirit of choice.

Some of our favorites include a song from Melly Baby titled “Casamigos (Blame It)” and an article which, despite having nothing to do with tequila, was headlined “Blame It on the Casamigos: Mom Births Twins With Different Dads After Rendezvous With Two Men In One Night.” Memes making the rounds on TikTok and Facebook repeat the phrase ad nauseam alongside everything imaginable: stumbling home from the bar, broken furniture and a fair share of late-night breakup texts.

For the most part, it’s harmless fun. Popular brand gets a popular meme, with trending interest in the latter fueling sales of the former.

However, it’s worth noting that this slogan (or, depending on how you view it, myth) almost certainly originated from a marketing team. Scroll a couple of years down the brand’s Instagram page to find posts like “Casamigos: The liquid form of Photoshop” and “I didn’t text you, Casamigos did” that predate the current trend. Though these aren’t a one-to-one parallel of the now-popular meme, it’s fair to say that the brand’s savvy social media presence planted the seeds for an idea that’s now taken on a life of its own.

Moral of the story: no brand has a particularly inebriating effect unless it’s bottled at a higher alcohol content, which most tequilas are not.

4. Those Alleged Psychadelic Properties

Certain liquor myths make the rounds like a game of telephone, morphing into increasingly unrecognizable form every time a drinker repeats them in a stupor. One of the most baffling is the idea that tequila contains psychoactive properties, acting as a sort of hallucinogen if drunk in excessive quantities. This rumor is sometimes, but not always, repeated alongside the enduring mythos that tequila is a stimulant.

Though the hallucinogen scuttlebutt is utterly untrue, it may be surprising to learn that the idea is rooted in a morsel of truth.

Like many popular notions surrounding tequila, this myth originates from a separate misconception about mezcal. When the spirit began gaining popularity north of the border in the 1950s, worried consumers had a habit of conflating mezcal with mescaline, a naturally occurring psychedelic found in peyote cactus grown throughout Northern Mexico. Over time, this evolved into a more specific misconception that the “mezcal worm” found at the bottom of certain bottles was the hallucinogenic suspect, imbuing a lingering high to anyone bold enough to slurp it down for a dare.

Whether or not mythmakers knew it at the time, certain agave worms (technically moth larvae, genus Comadia Redtenbacheri) are known to contain inebriating qualities. The wriggly critters sometimes feast upon the peyote cactus from which mescaline is refined, absorbing trace amounts of the substance, which could then hypothetically be passed on to any animals or humans that eat them. But those aren’t the larvae you’ll ever find swimming at the bottom of a bottle. Research suggests that liquor brands raise their agave larvae in captivity, indicating that today’s “mezcal worms” may never even touch agave — let alone peyote cacti — in their short lifespan.