Experience Agave is an educational tour company that connects beverage and culture through immersive tequila and mezcal tours in Jalisco, Oaxaca, and Colima. When we launched our tequila tours in 2009, this type of multi-day educational tequila tour didn’t exist. We modeled our tours on the experiences we had been stitching together ourselves for years…
Greetings from Jalisco! Everyone at Experience Agave is quite well, and we hope that you are too, wherever you may be. As a team, we would like to address the civil unrest and widespread arson that occurred in Jalisco on February 22, 2026. We’re aware that there is a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding about…
What a year it has been. The human losses have been incalculable, and the economic ones staggering. Experience Agave has been shut down de facto since the second week of March, 2020.
“The best way to support the Mexican countryside from the U.S. is to actualize trade and immigration policies that are fair and would allow people to work with dignity and living wages on both sides of the border.”
July 20, 2020 Dear friends of Experience Agave, We are currently working with a public health consultant and our partner distilleries, hotels, and transportation providers to ensure that when our tours resume, Experience Agave will have effective safety protocols built into every aspect of our tours. We are preparing to implement social distancing, temperature checks, mask…
“Oaxaca is mezcal country. Both industrial and artisan palenques dot the countryside and if you’ve developed a taste for this spirit then a day visiting some of these palenques with Experience Mezcal is a must. Accompanied by a passionate local guide you’ll discover the process of making mezcal from the roasting of the agave hearts,…
“Mezcal, tequila’s stronger and smokier relative, has become a staple spirit in trendy bars across Mexico and the United States in recent years, and the agave-based drink has inevitably attracted the interest of global alcohol giants. In the process local growers are worried a unique spirit is under threat… Mezcal has been made for centuries…
“Clayton Szczech – A widely respected ‘Tequila Geek’ and owner of Experience Tequila recommends Casachuín Blanco, Real Mexicana “Extra Dry” Extra-añejo, and 7 Leguas Single Barrel Extra-añejo.”
“Designed by owner Clayton Szczech as ‘group tours for people who don’t do group tours,’ Experience Tequila offers hands-on tours around Mexico’s eponymous region to acquaint guests with the spirit. Clients will learn about all the parts of the tequila production process, from agave cultivation and harvesting to distilling. Guests will also imbibe in the…
“We opt for a tour with Clayton Szczech, a self-styled tequila connoisseur. He guides us around the area, where we watch a jimador harvest the agave plant from which tequila is made.”
“Oaxaca is the second-poorest state in Mexico and its most indigenous, two braided facts that owe much to geography. When the Spanish plowed through in the 16th century, they found a rugged terrain dividing Oaxaca into isolated village-states. In some ways that’s still the case: Many communities have maintained their own dialects, their own traditions—and…
Blue Agave Endangered by Highlands Snow by Clayton J. Szczech, March 11, 2016 Residents of Jalisco’s Highlands region awoke Thursday to a substantial blanket of snow and ice covering the ground and local crops, including the emblematic Highland blue agaves. Online social media quickly filled with stunning and beautiful images, and alteños young and old took…