C2 The BulleTin • Sunday, May 2, 2021
Avila: The tequila that’s not tequila
BY ANDREA NAVARRO AND
MAYA AVERBUCH
Bloomberg
T
he U.S. has had a long
love affair with distilled
drinks made from agave.
First came the tequila craze,
then smoky mezcal was all the
rage. Now entrepreneurs, ea-
ger to tap into the reopening
of bars and restaurants across
the U.S., are banking on a new
drink they’re calling avila.
Revel Spirts, Inc., a closely
held company based in Los
Angeles, has a simple concept:
take the same blue agave used
in tequila, cultivate it in the
state of Morelos and distill it
using the artisanal method of
slow-cooking over burning
wood that produces smoky-ac-
cented mezcal.
But if Revel’s secret recipe
relies on two parts agave, one
part heated-rocks, it’s also at
least one part marketing. Only
distilleries in a certain region
of Mexico are allowed to call
their product “tequila,” just like
Champagne can only be made
in one part of France. Revel’s
operations are elsewhere, in
central Morelos state.
So instead of selling just an-
other mezcal, Revel’s co-found-
ers, Hector Ruiz and Micah
McFarlane, who both grew
up in Minnesota, simply cre-
ated a new category to build a
sense of mystique and novelty.
The company is investing mil-
lions of dollars into the brand,
marketing it with a celebrity
credential, and offering its
most premium product, called
“Añejo,” for up to $170 a bottle
in U.S. liquor stores.
“If I ask someone whether
they want mezcal from More-
los, Oaxaca or Guerrero, obvi-
ously people are going to say
Oaxaca or Guerrero, because
those are the places with the
longest history,” said Juan Car-
los Gordillo, Revel’s director
of operations in Mexico. “The
Revel project’s mission is to
create a new category called
avila.” Ruiz, the co-founder,
was born in Morelos.
The company, which sold
its first bottle in 2017, hopes to
raise $20 million in a C round
of investment in the coming
months. About 60% of that
will go toward advertising and
Luis Antonio Rojas/Bloomberg photos
Workers walk through Blue Weber agave fields used for Revel Spirits Inc. avila drinks at a farm in Jonacatepec, Morelos state, Mexico, on March 26.
marketing, with the rest ear-
marked for building inven-
tory of its avila products. The
name is a tribute to Noe Avila,
a master distiller who works at
Hector Ruiz’s family’s distillery.
It doesn’t hurt to have Justin
Hartley, a star in the popular
‘This is Us’ streaming series, as
an owner since May 2020.
As the pandemic shut down
bars and clubs, Revel spent
the fallow months selling its
offerings “Añejo,” aged for 24
months in French oak barrels,
through online alcohol purvey-
ors like Reserve Bar and regu-
lar liquor stores.
“We’re small and hand-
crafted so we cannot beat up
our product and try to sell it
for $20,” McFarlane said of
the high price point. “We’ve
worked too hard to deliver
quality, natural farming and
few pesticides.”
In dry flatlands that sit
among the hills of Morelos,
avila harvesters shuck of the
slender, pointed leaves of the
Blue Weber agave until only
the pineapple-like heart is left.
The hearts are roasted on a
bed of rocks collected from a
nearby volcano, then mashed
into a juice and fermented.
It’s distilled up to three times,
Continued from C1
Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
Debbie Rios works in the decontamination area at Medline Industries,
Inc. in Redmond where more than 200 employees work to reprocess
medical devices.
vation,” Stark said in an email.
“Given their significant growth
trajectory, it (didn’t) take long
before they needed additional
space. That time has come.”
spokeswoman. The contract
saves the hospital 40% to 60%
in purchasing the equipment
new.
“It is a great program to help
reduce the cost of disposable
items, but also helps with lim-
iting the number of items that
are put in the landfills,” said
Tracy Bloo, surgical services
manager at St. Charles Red-
mond. “Every time we send
an item to be reprocessed, it
stays out of the landfill. Even
if St. Charles doesn’t buy cer-
tain items back, other hospital
organizations that utilize Med-
line ReNewal can purchase re-
processed items St. Charles has
turned in. So, it’s a win-win
for all.”
A recent study by the Fraun-
hofer Institute for Environ-
mental, Safety and Energy
Technology, found that the
global warming impact was
cut by 50% just by reprocess-
ing catheters over making new
ones.
In addition, the process of
reprocessing medial devices
saved the medical industry
about $545 million, according
to the Association of Medical
Device Reprocessors. Medline
ReNewal’s process has diverted
the equivalent of 37 million
water bottles or more than 1
million pounds of waste, Cza-
jka said. As an industry, repro-
cessing medical devices kept
15 million pounds of waste
from landfills.
“Medical facilities get de-
vices back at a lower rate,” Cza-
jka said. “The health centers
are finding that partnering
with us is helping grow our
Bottles of Revel Spirits products rest on a display table at Hacienda
Don Raul, one of the distilleries that provides avila to Revel Spirits.
Medline
“There’s lots of know-how in
Redmond,” Czajka said. “Red-
mond has been great to work
with.”
The company tapped into
Redmond’s enterprise zone
real estate tax program for the
initial construction on 12 acres
on Hemlock Avenue, said Jon
Stark, Redmond Economic
Development Inc. senior di-
rector.
“This expansion is a good
example of how local compa-
nies can grow in Central Ore-
gon, be acquired by larger cor-
porations, adding horsepower
— capital and talent — to fur-
ther obtain market share while
creating additional demand for
their products through inno-
pushed through a filtration
system, and left to age for up
to 24 months for the Añejo in
barrels. A tequila-like steaming
system is used to cook other
agave hearts, and most of the
Revel drinks are a mix of alco-
hol made from two processes.
Worldwide, tequila and
mezcal still have plenty of
room to grow, making up only
about 3% of the $491 billion
spirits industry, according to
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst
Kenneth Shea. In North Amer-
ica, the main market for agave
distillates, the share is larger at
11%, he said.
IWSR, a market analyst that
follows alcoholic beverages,
forecasts that mezcal volume
in the US will grow more than
64% from 2019 to 2024, while
tequila is expected to grow
36%.
“Consumers are looking for
something different, some-
thing crafty, artisanal,” Shea
said. If the founders are “good
brand marketers, they have a
good chance at success.”
In addition to its premium
Añejo, Revel’s portfolio in-
cludes a clear-colored “Blanco”
which sells for $60, and the
“Reposado” priced at $75 and
aged for 12 months in Ameri-
St. Charles Health Sys-
tem contracts with Med-
line ReNewal for reprocess-
ing its medical waste, said
Lisa Goodman, the hospital
can white oak barrels. A fourth
product called “El Popo,”
named after the Popocatepetl
volcano that lies about 15 miles
northeast of the Revel distill-
ery, is set to be launched in the
U.S. in the second half of the
year.
Agave takes anywhere from
seven to 10 years to mature.
The long process and huge de-
mand have pushed up agave
prices, BI’s Shea says. “Demand
is so strong producers can’t
seem to grow this fast enough,”
he said.
Revel says it’s able to pro-
duce enough by mixing three
kinds of agave. The company
currently has access to 550
hectares that grows Blue We-
ber, Espadin and Criollo. The
first is traditionally used by te-
quileros, while the other two
are more commonly used by
mezcaleros.
“We have enough agave until
2030,” McFarlane said. “Every
year we try to add hectares by
buying from farmers’ associa-
tions.”
The rows of agave in the
town of Jonacatepec are sur-
rounded by emptied corn and
cane fields amid low-slung
mountains. The Popocatepetl
volcano is off in the distance-
its long plume seen rising in
the sky when it’s active. Plant-
ing agave is a long-term bet
for area farmers, who make
money selling small agave
plants to other growers while
waiting for their own to ma-
ture.
Small distillers from Mo-
relos have long sought certi-
fication as both tequila and
mezcal producers but were al-
ways rebuffed on both counts,
said Andres Torres Acuña, the
head of quality control for the
Tequila Regulatory council.
That’s why Revel chose from
the start to come up with a new
name and category. Morelos
has in the past tried to mar-
ket refino, an agave alcohol
that the revolutionary leader
Emiliano Zapata, who hailed
from the state, is said to have
favored, but it never caught on.
“Every region has different
qualities,” Torres said. “If ev-
eryone tried to make a product
that distinguished itself from
ours, that would be fantastic.”
business. We’ve been fortunate
to have good partners that
have chosen our company.”
Medical device reprocessing
is regulated by the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration,
which must approve single-use
devices for reuse and requires
the same standards apply as
if the device was newly man-
ufactured, according to the
Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention.
“Medline is one of Central
Oregon’s ‘Gazelle’ companies,
in that they continue to grow,
even during challenging eco-
nomic times, helping Red-
mond to further diversify its
economic base and insulating
it from future storms,” Stark
said.
e e
Reporter: 541-633-2117,
sroig@bendbulletin.com
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