NOM 1119 is Casa Herradura, in Amatitán, Jalisco — the next town over from Tequila itself. Two brands most people have held come out of it: Herradura and el Jimador, one priced at roughly twice the other, made in the same building by the same company.
It is also the distillery behind the single most useful label on my shelf. My el Jimador prints its NOM on the FRONT of the bottle, which almost nothing else does — and the number it prints is not the one several reference sites publish.
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NOM 1119 at a glance
| NOM | 1119 |
|---|---|
| Distillery | Casa Herradura (Tequila Herradura, S.A. de C.V.) |
| Location | Amatitán, Jalisco |
| Region | Valles — the lowlands, beside the town of Tequila |
| Founded | 1870, as Hacienda San José del Refugio |
| Owner | Brown-Forman, since 2007 |
| Brands recorded | Herradura · el Jimador · Hacienda de Cristero · Grand Imperio · New Mix |
| Verified first-hand | NOM 1119, read off the front label of my own el Jimador |
The number is on the front, which almost never happens
The NOM is normally a four-digit number in small print on the back label, or moulded into the glass near the base. You have to turn the bottle over to find it, which is most of the reason people never look. Where to look, bottle by bottle.
el Jimador puts it on the front. It is there in the open, next to the CRT mark, before you have picked the bottle up. For anyone learning to read labels this is the easiest possible first example — and it costs about as little as tequila costs.
It also means the cheapest bottle in this comparison is the one being most forthcoming about where it was made. That is worth sitting with, given how many expensive bottles make you hunt for the same four digits.
A correction worth recording: 1119, not 1414
Several tequila reference sites list Herradura under NOM 1414. That is wrong. It is 1119 — which I can state plainly because the number is printed on the front of a bottle in my own house, not because a database told me so.
This is the recurring lesson of the whole directory. A bottle is a primary source; a lookup table is somebody’s transcription of one. When they disagree, the glass wins. The same thing has now happened on this site with Don Ramón, where published listings and my own labels gave four different numbers and all four turned out to be real.
Brands made at NOM 1119
| Brand | What it is | Covered here |
|---|---|---|
| Herradura | The premium line — Plata, Reposado, Añejo and the Selección Suprema extra añejo | yes |
| el Jimador | The everyday line, launched 1994 — Silver, Reposado, Añejo, Cristalino | yes |
| Hacienda de Cristero | Listed in company records | not yet |
| Grand Imperio | Listed in company records | not yet |
| New Mix | Listed in company records | not yet |
The first two are the ones you will meet on a shelf. The other three are recorded here because a NOM page that lists only the famous brands is doing the same thing the lookup tables do — showing you the part someone already knew.
What the owner states about el Jimador
Brown-Forman publishes the production detail for el Jimador directly, which is more than most brands at this price do. Taken from its own brand page:
- 100% blue agave — not a mixto, despite the price. That is printed on the label too, so you can settle it in the shop.
- Fermented naturally with wild yeast. Most large producers pitch a cultured strain for consistency. Wild fermentation is a choice you would expect to be charged for.
- Reposado: two months in the distillery’s own charred American white oak.
- Añejo: twelve months in the same barrels.
- Cristalino: charcoal-filtered until the colour is gone.
- Launched in 1994, roughly 120 years after the distillery itself.
Two months is the floor, not a choice
Two months is the legal minimum for a reposado. Mexican law requires at least two months in oak for the category and less than a year; el Jimador Reposado sits exactly on that line.
That is not a criticism, and here is why it matters: my Gran Centenario Azul states “2 meses” as well, in a far heavier bottle at a far higher price. Two bottles at opposite ends of the shelf, the same two months in wood. Nothing on the front of either one tells you that, and the category name certainly does not. What the aging windows actually mean.
The honest version of the comparison: aging time is one variable, and a cheap bottle matching an expensive one on that variable does not make them the same tequila. It does mean the word reposado on a label tells you almost nothing on its own.
Herradura: 1870, and the 1974 claim
The distillery was registered in 1870 by Félix López, as Hacienda San José del Refugio. The Herradura name — horseshoe — came later, from one found in the agave fields, and was registered as a brand in 1928. Brown-Forman bought the company in 2007 for US$776 million.
Two product dates are worth knowing, and one of them needs care:
- 1974 — the reposado. The brand claims this was the first reposado tequila. I have not found that confirmed independently of the brand, so it is recorded here as a claim Herradura makes, not as a settled fact. The uncontested part is that Herradura introduced its own reposado that year.
- 1995 — Selección Suprema, its extra añejo, arriving a full eleven years before the extra añejo category was formally created in 2006.
Marketing firsts are the least reliable claims in this industry, and this site has corrected enough of its own errors to be wary of repeating one. The same scepticism, applied to additive-free claims.
Where to buy
| Bottle | Type | ABV | 100% agave? | Where to buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Herradura Blanco (Silver) | blanco | 40% (US) | yes | Check price |
| el Jimador Reposado | reposado | 40% (US) | yes | — |
Only bottles with a tracked link are listed with one. ABV figures are for US bottlings; Mexican-market bottlings of the same expression are routinely lower — 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.
NOM 1119: common questions
Who makes el Jimador tequila?
Casa Herradura, in Amatitán, Jalisco — the same distillery that makes Herradura. Both are owned by Brown-Forman. You can confirm it yourself without any research: el Jimador prints NOM 1119 on the front of the bottle.
What NOM is el Jimador?
1119. Several reference sites publish 1414 for this distillery; that figure is wrong, and the front label settles it.
Is el Jimador 100% agave?
Yes. Brown-Forman states it is made with 100% blue agave and fermented with wild yeast, and “100% de agave” appears on the label — which is a regulated phrase, not a marketing one. A tequila that does not say it is a mixto, and may legally be up to 49% sugars that never came from agave.
Are Herradura and el Jimador the same tequila?
No, but they are made by the same company in the same place. Different expressions, different aging regimes, different prices. Liking one is a reasonable reason to try the other — which is not something you can say about two brands that merely share a shelf.
Where is NOM 1119?
Amatitán, Jalisco, in the Valles — the lowlands, next to the town of Tequila. Lowland agave is generally associated with earthier, more peppery tequila than the sweeter highland style, though the distillery’s own decisions matter at least as much as the soil.
Did Herradura invent the reposado?
Herradura says so, dating it to 1974. I have not found that confirmed by a source independent of the brand, so treat it as a claim rather than a fact. What is not in dispute is that Herradura was early, and that its extra añejo predates the category’s legal existence by eleven years.
Related
- The full NOM directory — every distillery recorded so far
- What does NOM mean on tequila? — the four digits explained
- How to read a tequila label — where the NOM sits on the bottle
- Don Ramón — the opposite case: one brand across five NOMs
- NOM 1122 — one number, two distilleries, two regions
- NOM 1449, Tequila Tres Magueyes — Don Julio, read off my own bottles
- Reposado vs añejo — what the aging windows actually mean
- Tequila proof and alcohol content — the 35% to 55% range