NOM 1111 Tequila: Olmeca and Olmeca Altos — One Word Apart

NOM 1111 is Destilería Colonial de Jalisco, in Arandas, in the Jalisco highlands — Pernod Ricard’s tequila distillery. It makes Olmeca and Olmeca Altos.

Those two names differ by one word on the shelf. One of them is a mixto and the other is 100% agave. There is no clearer argument anywhere on this site for reading the front label rather than the brand.

Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through one, this site earns a commission at no extra cost to you. It does not change which bottles are recommended or what is said about them. Full disclosure.

NOM 1111 at a glance

NOM1111
DistilleryDestilería Colonial de Jalisco (Pernod Ricard México, S.A. de C.V.)
LocationArandas, Jalisco
RegionLos Altos — the highlands, around 2,100 metres
Built1994
OwnerPernod Ricard
Brands recordedOlmeca · Olmeca Altos · Mariachi
The catchOlmeca is a mixto. Olmeca Altos is 100% agave.

Bottles made at NOM 1111

BrandExpressionTypeABV100% agave?Where to buy
Olmeca AltosPlatablanco40%yesCheck price
Olmeca AltosReposadoreposado40%yesCheck price
OlmecaBlancoblanco—no — mixto—
OlmecaGoldjoven—no — mixto—

ABV figures are for the bottlings recorded here. The same expression can be filled lower for the Mexican market and for some European ones — my own Don Julio bottles read 38% where the US figure is 40%. Read the front of the bottle in your hand rather than a listing.

Altos is not the same as Olmeca

This is the whole page. Olmeca is a mixto — by law, up to 49% of its fermentable sugars can come from cane or corn rather than agave. Olmeca Altos is 100% agave. Same distillery, same NOM, same company, and the names are one word apart.

Neither of those is a scandal. A mixto is a legal grade of tequila, not a counterfeit, and it is priced accordingly. The problem is purely that the shelf makes them look like the same family, and a NOM lookup makes them look identical, because they are identical on that field.

What separates them is three words in small type: 100% de agave. If a bottle does not say it, it is a mixto. Where to look.

Arandas now holds seven NOMs in my records

My own notes have been listing six distilleries in Arandas. Recording the location for NOM 1111 properly makes it seven, in one small highland town:

NOMDistilleryKnown for
1111Destilería Colonial de JaliscoOlmeca, Olmeca Altos — Pernod Ricard
1139La AlteñaTapatío, El Tesoro
1140CentinelaCabrito
1456Tequila SupremoMaracame
1474—Tequila Ocho
1487Bacardí y CompañíaCazadores, Camino Real — Bacardí
1499—1921

Two of those seven belong to global drinks multinationals — Pernod Ricard at 1111 and Bacardí at 1487 — and both of them make a mixto alongside a 100%-agave line. The rest are family and independent operations. One town, one soil, one altitude, and nothing like one kind of tequila.

That is the useful corrective to “highlands tequila” as a flavour description. The highlands are a place, not a recipe.

Altos was designed by bartenders

Olmeca Altos launched in 2009, out of a collaboration between two bartenders — Dre Masso and Henry Besant — and master distiller Jesús Hernández, with Pernod Ricard behind it.

That origin explains the bottle. It was built to be mixed rather than contemplated: a 100%-agave tequila at a price a bar can pour all night, from a company whose other tequila at the same address is a mixto. Brands are usually designed by marketing departments and then handed to a distillery. This one ran the other way round.

The tahona, and what it costs to use one

Altos is made with a tahona — a two-ton volcanic stone wheel that crushes cooked agave, historically dragged by a mule and now turned by a motor. The agave is slow-cooked in brick ovens first.

A tahona is slow, heavy and awkward to clean, and it is the reason tahona-crushed bottlings cost what they do. Which makes a second distillery in this directory worth putting beside it: Felipe Camarena at El Pandillo built his own mechanical tahona out of salvaged railroad and steamroller parts, around 19,000 pounds of it, to get the same crush on less power. One solved the problem with a corporate budget and the other with a scrapyard, and both bottles are on the shelf at prices people actually pay.

Wikipedia also records a third line, Olmeca Tezón, made entirely from tahona-crushed agave. It does not appear in the brand listings I can find today and no bottle has passed through here, so it is noted rather than claimed.

NOM 1111: common questions

Who makes Olmeca tequila?

Pernod Ricard, at Destilería Colonial de Jalisco in Arandas, Jalisco — NOM 1111, built in 1994. The same distillery makes Olmeca Altos and Mariachi.

Is Olmeca 100% agave?

No. The standard Olmeca line is a mixto, which means up to 49% of its fermentable sugars can come from something other than agave. Olmeca Altos is 100% agave, and says so on the front. The two sit side by side in most shops.

What is the difference between Olmeca and Olmeca Altos?

One word on the label and an entire grade of tequila. Altos is 100% agave, tahona-crushed, and was created in 2009 with two bartenders and a master distiller. Olmeca is a mixto at a lower price. Both come out of the same building in Arandas.

Where is NOM 1111?

Arandas, Jalisco, in the Los Altos highlands at roughly 2,100 metres — a town that holds at least seven separate NOMs in my own records, including Bacardí’s.

Is Olmeca Altos additive-free?

Unknown, and nobody can tell you otherwise right now. The public verified list was withdrawn in October 2024, so there is no current independent inspection to point at for this or almost any other brand. What happened, and what a claim is worth without it.