Alberto Navarro of Loco Tequila

Alberto Navarro has spent much of his career thinking about tequila from nearly every angle. He began in consumer marketing before moving into the spirits world with Casa Pedro Domecq and later Pernod Ricard, where his work took him from commercial leadership into global tequila education and advocacy. He became closely associated with Olmeca, Altos and the Tahona Society, helping teach bartenders and the trade about tequila at a time when the category was still working to move beyond its shot-and-salt reputation. He later became an independent consultant and wrote Larousse del Tequila, an award-winning reference book on the spirit. Today, Navarro is CEO and Maestro Tequilero of Loco Tequila, an ambitious project based in El Arenal, Jalisco, built around the idea that tequila can express place with the same seriousness we give terroir in wine. Loco takes an unusually detailed approach to production, from mature estate-grown Blue Weber agave and a second, more exacting jima, to slow oven cooking, tahona and roller-mill extraction, and separate fermentations in wood, concrete and stainless steel. Those components give Navarro a palette from which to build the final tequila. For Loco Puro Corazón, the distillation is even more selective, retaining only the heart of the run rather than recovering heads and tails for later use. Jessica sat down with Alberto to talk about his path through the tequila world, why El Arenal matters, what terroir means in a distilled spirit, and the thinking behind a tequila designed to preserve agave character rather than disguise it. The Loco Tequila Story