TEd genoways

Tequila Wars

The wild untold story of the godfather of tequila.

ABOUT THE BOOK

A revelatory history of the vast tequila empire born from the fires of the Mexican Revolution

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At the dawn of the twentieth century,
José Cuervo inherited his family’s distillery, La Rojeña, in the Tequila Valley. Within a decade, he had built an empire that would become the nation’s leading producer of liquor. But when the Mexican Revolution erupted, a charge of treason and a threat against his life by Pancho Villa forced Cuervo to flee. His disappearance turned him into an obscure, shadowy figure, despite having one of the most famous names in the annals of Mexico. In Tequila Wars, award-winning writer Ted Genoways restores Cuervo to his rightful place in history—as an impresario, kingmaker, and cultural force during his country’s bloodiest era.

Author

ABOUT
the Author

Ted Genoways is a two-time James Beard Award winner and the author of six books, including Tequila Wars and This Blessed Earth. His other honors include a National Press Club Award, an Association of Food Journalists Award, the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, and fellowships from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation. He is a senior editor at the Food & Environment Reporting Network and a President’s Professor at the University of Tulsa, where he edits Switchyard.

Photograph of Ted Genoways taken
by Mary Anne Andrei in the courtyard of
José Cuervo’s former home in the town of Tequila.

PRAISE FOR TEQUILA WARS

“I am amazed by the research that
Ted Genoways has done on the Cuervo family. I treasure these stories of more than two hundred years of my ancestors, particularly the stories of the life of my great-uncle José Cuervo―and every word of it is true....
May Tequila Wars be read widely, now and for generations to come."

LUIS CUERVO HERNANDEZ,

author of La Familia Cuervo

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