Meet the Distiller Who Changed the Course of Tequila History
During a tasting at Distillery Los Alambiques in Jalisco, Mexico, master distiller Carlos Camarena pauses over two blanco tequilas that look identical until he starts talking about them. They were made the same way, in the same season and with the same equipment. The only variable is the agave, which was grown in two different fields. For Camarena, that's where the story gets interesting.
The first tequila, he says, is like a kid raised in the suburbs - "a little bit easier life, a little bit smoother, softer. The character is kind of a little bit more gentle." The second? That one grew up in a tougher neighborhood. "Every day getting out of home, it had to fight for survival. So therefore it has a little bit of tough edges"
It's classic Camarena who is able to simply and expertlt explain terroir - a concept that once felt foreign to tequila - through a parable about two kids walking to school. This is also part of the reason he's become one of the most influential figures in modern tequila. He didn't just innovate in the fields and the distillery. He changed the way people understand and speak about tequila.
Agave Roots & Tequila Responsibility
Camarena is a fifth‑generation agave grower and third‑generation tequila producer, but he'll tell you his relationship with agave started long before he understood his family's business. "As far as I can remember tequila and agave has always been part of my life," he says. He learned to drive a Jeep at 10 so he could take the jimadores to the fields to harvest the agave. Late, he studied agriculture because he fell in love with the plant itself - he still keeps a personal garden of agave species. "I just love the agave," he says.
His plan was to spend his life in the fields. But when Camarena returned from college, degree in hand and ready to farm, his father had another idea. His father planned on working the fields himself, while Camarena took over running the distillery and dealing with all of the administration tasks and duties. "I don't really know how to produce tequila," Camarena told him. But his father simply shrugged. "You will learn," he told his son. "If you need me, you know where to find me."
Related: La Alteña's CEO Started as a Tequila Novice. Now She's the Brand's Master Distiller
So Camarena went to the distillery and he learned how to make tequila from the second‑ and third‑generation workers at the family's distillery, La Alteña. And most importantly he learned that if tequila has only one raw material, then everything depends on the quality of the agave. "If you don't have first‑quality agaves," he says, "there is no way that you can produce first‑quality tequila."
That obsession with agave - and terroir - eventually led to his most influential idea.
The Birth of Tequila Ocho
In the mid‑2000s, Camarena was spending time with his friend Tomás Estes, the late tequila ambassador to the EU and a Burgundy wine obsessive. Estes talked a lot about terroir in wine and Camarena realized he was seeing
the same thing in agave his family was growing. Every field produced agave that was subtly different. While these differences weren't limited to Camarena's fields, the industry generally blended agave from different fields together to even out these differences and produce a consistent product. Camarena wondered what would happen if he did the opposite and started celebrating these differences.
The idea was so radical at the time that many people had trouble wrapping their heads around it. But he and Estes persevered and in 2008 created Tequila Ocho, which didn't chase consistency, but celebrated differences. "Instead of pretending that it is not happening," he says, "let's be clear and transparent about it. Let's show the world how different they may be."
In practical terms, that means each batch of Tequila Ocho is made from the agave grown on a single estate. The front label of each bottle proudly states the name of the estate, its altitude and the year the agave was harvested.
Tequila Ocho has not only survived but has become a favorite of bartenders and tequila connoisseurs. While the brand was originally made at Camarena's historic distillery La Alteña, it has become so successful that three years ago it moved to its own distillery, Tequilera Los Alambiques. (His daughter, Jenny Camarena, is now the master distiller of La Alteña, which continues to make a number of tequila brands.)
Today, terroir‑driven agave spirits are everywhere. Camarena doesn't brag about playing a key role in starting this trend, but he does allow himself one small smile: "At that moment, we were paving the road for other people and now everybody's realizing that it was reality."
From the Highlands to the World
Camarena has watched the U.S. tequila market transform over the past 40 years. When he first traveled north to promote his family's spirits, he says. "The usual reaction was ‘no thank you. I don't want to know anything on tequila.'" Cheap spring‑break tequilas had done their damage.
Education changed everything. So did transparency. Sustainability is now his focus: crop rotation, composting, organic pest control, solar energy, and full recycling. "I'm not the owner of the land," he says. "I'm just the keeper. I need to take care of it for the next generations."
Related: Tequila Has an Agave Problem. Meet the Distiller Trying to Fix It
And when he talks about stewardship - of the fields, the distillery, the family name - it's impossible not to hear about the person he learned it all from. It's the same person who he'd most like to share a tequila with. "My father," he says. "I would have another tequila with my father, and I would say, ‘You were right in everything that you showed me. See how far we got.'"
This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Jun 22, 2026, where it first appeared in the Drink section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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This story was originally published June 22, 2026 at 1:48 PM.