The agave fields of El Arenal

By the Awevo team. Published October 25, 2026.

El Arenal is a small town west of Guadalajara, on the way to the town of Tequila. Drive out there and the hills turn blue-gray. That's agave, row after row of it.

Destiladora Refugio (NOM 1549), where Awevo is made, sits in El Arenal. The agave for our first harvest was cut in the fields around the distillery in late June 2026.

Below the volcano

Over the valley stands the Volcán de Tequila, an old volcano that gave the region a lot of its soil. The dirt in these fields is volcanic, and in places it's a deep red. Blue Weber agave grows well in it.

The area is part of what people call the Tequila Valley, or Los Valles. UNESCO listed the agave landscape around Tequila as a World Heritage site in 2006, and when you stand in it you get why.

Years in the ground

Agave isn't a quick crop. A blue Weber plant grows for years before it's ready to harvest, and it only gets cut once. Farmers watch the plants, weed between the rows and trim them as they grow. Then a jimador comes through with a coa and the plant becomes a piña.

That long wait is part of why agave matters so much to the region. A field planted today is a harvest several years from now.

Only blue Weber

Tequila can only be made from one plant, Agave tequilana Weber, blue variety. Awevo is 100% Agave Azul, certified by the CRT. It also has to come from the protected tequila region, which is what the D.O.P. on the label means. Jalisco is the heart of it.

From here to the oven

The fields are where it starts. What happens next, the jima and the 48-hour horno cook at Refugio, is in From field to horno: the first Awevo harvest. For the cooking side, read Hornos vs. autoclave. Short answers live in the FAQ.

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