NOM 1474 is Cía. Tequilera Los Alambiques, built in 2021 at Cerro del Gallo in Arandas, Jalisco. It is Tequila Ocho’s main home, and the newer of the two distilleries the Camarena family runs in that town.
It is also the page where this directory has to argue with itself. Everything else here says: read the four digits, because the building is the thing that tells you what is in the bottle. Ocho is the one brand that says the building is not enough — and it has the labels to back it up.
NOM 1474 at a glance
| NOM | 1474 |
|---|---|
| Distillery | Cía. Tequilera Los Alambiques, S.A. de C.V. |
| Location | Cerro del Gallo, Arandas, Jalisco |
| Region | Los Altos — the highlands |
| Built | 2021 |
| Behind it | Carlos Camarena, third-generation distiller |
| Brands recorded | Tequila Ocho · Trago · Charbay |
| The catch | Ocho also comes out of NOM 1139, and always has |
The brand that prints the field and the year on the label
Tequila Ocho was founded in 2008 by Carlos Camarena and the late Tomas Estes, and it did something no tequila brand had done: every bottle is harvested in a single year, from a single named ranch, and both the ranch and the vintage are printed on the label.
The ranch names rotate — Las Aguilillas, La Magueyera, Las Pomas, El Carrizal, La Latilla. A 2017 Las Pomas and a 2018 Las Aguilillas are not the same tequila, and the brand’s whole proposition is that you should be able to tell.
That is a wine argument applied to agave, and it is a direct challenge to the way this site usually reasons. The NOM tells you the building. It does not tell you the field, the year, or the weather. For most brands that gap does not matter, because nobody is claiming it does. Ocho claims it does, and then publishes the evidence on the front of the bottle.
Two NOMs, and why that is the whole point
This page exists because of a contradiction that sat unresolved in my notes for weeks. The directory listed Ocho at 1474. Several reference sites place it at La Alteña, NOM 1139. One of them had to be wrong.
Neither was.
| NOM | Distillery | Ocho’s relationship |
|---|---|---|
| 1474 | Los Alambiques, Cerro del Gallo | Primary distillery since 2021 |
| 1139 | La Alteña | The original home, and still used — a selection of 2025 vintages was made there again |
Production moves between the family’s two distilleries as capacity requires. Which means a brand-level NOM lookup for Ocho is wrong for roughly half the bottles on the shelf, whichever number it returns.
And here is the part worth sitting with: the brand built on naming the field is the one that moved buildings without anybody minding. It could move because the building was never what it was selling. Compare Don Ramón, which has used five NOMs for ordinary commercial reasons and tells you about none of them.
Three generations, and a distillery from 1937
Carlos Camarena is a third-generation distiller. His grandfather, Felipe J. Camarena, founded Tequila Tapatío in 1937 at La Alteña — which is why Ocho started there. His father was Felipe Camarena Curiel.
The family runs three distilleries across two towns, and all three are already in this directory:
| NOM | Distillery | Town | Known for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1139 | La Alteña (1937) | Arandas | Tapatío, El Tesoro |
| 1474 | Los Alambiques (2021) | Arandas | Tequila Ocho |
| 1579 | El Pandillo (2011) | Jesús María | G4, Terralta, Volans, Pasote |
Eighty-four years separate the oldest from the newest. No label on any of those bottles tells you they are related — the four digits are what make the connection visible at all.
Two of Arandas’s seven NOMs are one family
Arandas holds at least seven separate NOMs in my records. Two of them, 1139 and 1474, belong to the Camarenas. Two more — 1111 and 1487 — belong to Pernod Ricard and Bacardí.
One small highland town, and inside it: two global drinks corporations, one family with two plants, and three independents. “Highlands tequila” describes none of that.
Tomas Estes
The other half of Ocho was Tomas Estes, a British-American restaurateur who served for decades as Mexico’s official Tequila Ambassador to Europe. He died in 2020.
Worth recording because the usual shape of a celebrity or founder tequila is a name rented to a liquid someone else made. This was the reverse: a man who spent his career arguing that tequila deserved to be taken as seriously as wine, who then went and made the bottle that proves the point on its own label.
Bottles made at NOM 1474
| Brand | Expressions | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Tequila Ocho | Plata, Reposado, Añejo, Extra Añejo | Single rancho, single vintage — both printed on the label |
| Trago | Silver, Reposado, Añejo | Recorded under this NOM |
| Charbay | Blanco | Recorded under this NOM |
No tracked purchase link exists for any of these yet, so none is offered here. Nothing on this page is an affiliate link.
ABV figures are deliberately omitted. I have no bottle from this distillery on the shelf and have not found a figure I would stand behind — and on a brand where every release is a different harvest, a single number would be the wrong shape of answer anyway. Read the front of the bottle in your hand.
How solid each fact on this page is
Nothing here is first-hand — no bottle from this distillery has passed through my house. Since this site has had to correct its own published errors more than once, here is the evidence behind each claim rather than a flat assertion:
- The distillery name — Cía. Tequilera Los Alambiques — and the Los Altos location are confirmed by two independent references.
- Ocho, Trago and Charbay are all recorded under 1474 in a published product register. Some references list only Ocho; none contradicts the others.
- Single rancho, single vintage is stated by more than one source and is printed on the bottles themselves.
- Built in 2021, at Cerro del Gallo comes from a single reference. Treat the year and the exact site as reported rather than settled.
- Founded 2008 by Carlos Camarena and Tomas Estes, and the family line back to 1937, likewise rest mainly on one detailed source, though the 1937 Tapatío date matches what this site already records for La Alteña.
NOM 1474: common questions
Who makes Tequila Ocho?
Carlos Camarena, at Cía. Tequilera Los Alambiques in Arandas — NOM 1474, built 2021. The brand was founded in 2008 with Tomas Estes, and was originally made at the family’s older distillery, La Alteña, NOM 1139.
What NOM is Tequila Ocho?
Usually 1474, sometimes 1139. Current production is at Los Alambiques; some vintages, including a selection of 2025 releases, were made at La Alteña. Check the bottle in front of you — for this brand more than almost any other, the number genuinely varies between releases.
Why do two Ocho bottles show different NOMs?
Because the family owns both distilleries and moves production between them as capacity requires. It is not a downgrade and not a secret. It is the predictable consequence of a brand whose identity is the harvest rather than the building.
What do the words on an Ocho label mean?
The year is the harvest year. The name beside it — Las Aguilillas, La Magueyera, Las Pomas, El Carrizal, La Latilla — is the specific ranch the agave was cut from. Both change from release to release, on purpose.
Where is NOM 1474?
Cerro del Gallo, in Arandas, Jalisco — the Los Altos highlands. At least seven separate NOMs sit in that one town, two of them belonging to this same family.
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
- NOM 1139, La Alteña — the family’s 1937 distillery, and Ocho’s first home
- NOM 1579, El Pandillo — the same family again, one town over
- NOM 1111 — the seven distilleries of Arandas
- Don Ramón — one brand across five NOMs, for the opposite reason
- NOM 1146, La Tequileña — where the agave comes from somewhere else entirely