People come to Las Vegas from all over the globe for the chance to be a different version of themselves, so the city was a good choice for the U.S. debut of Dos Caras, which translates to “two faces,” said Ian Miller, creative director of the Mexico-based distillery.
“When they go out to the casinos, it’s one face; when they go out to the clubs, it’s another face,” Miller said. “And so it’s just really that idea of honoring all the variants of human life and human existence, across cultures and across languages and across heritages.”
Lupita Arreguín, president and owner of Dos Caras, said she and her husband laid the foundation for the tequila company as early as 2004, but the brand didn’t really take off until about two years ago.
Arreguín, who was born in and lives in Mexico, said tequila has been a huge part of her life.
“I’m super proud of this tequila that we have,” she said, noting how she values her heritage and having a Mexican-owned tequila brand. “I’d really like for people to understand the way that we view and drink tequila in Mexico.”
She said Dos Caras chose to roll out its product in Las Vegas casinos, bars and liquor stores because of existing connections in the city, and that the experience has been “fantastic” so far.
The community is amazing and lively, Arreguín said, and has embraced Dos Caras since its arrival in January.
“It just started to fit and we started to see how the brand fit into the Vegas market,” said Andreas Garcia, a Dos Caras employee and relative of Arreguín. “That name Dos Caras just applies in so many scenarios, but it’s interesting how everything is just starting to fall into place for the brand and the city and the people we’re meeting.”
Many tequila companies are targeted toward American culture, Arreguín said, when the population of consumers is actually so diverse. Ultimately, she wants to do things “in a way that speaks to everyone.”
“The Latin community is huge,” she said. “And so I really want to find a way to reach them.”
Les Kekahuna, a Dos Caras employee who lives in Las Vegas, said the city was a special place for the tequila brand to launch in the U.S. because of how many people come here to “have a good time.”
A primary goal of Kekahuna and others at Dos Caras is to educate consumers on the history of the agave plant, the process by which it becomes tequila and how to sip it—instead of just using it for shots, or to be chased by salt and lime, Garcia said.
“If you shoot it straight to your liver, you’re not respecting the spirit,” he said. “Because what you have in your glass—it took eight to 10 years to get into that glass.”
The agave used to make Dos Caras is planted in Mexico’s highlands, Garcia said, where it grows for up to a decade before being handpicked. From there, it goes to the distillery, where it’s chopped and cooked for 16 hours, then injected with water from Dos Caras’ 200-foot-deep wells.
“The agave plant—it’s a beautiful plant,” Garcia said. “It’s its own little spirit; it has its own little energy; it grows. And we take it from this physical form and turn it into a liquid form.”
Next is the fermentation process, which takes up to five days, and then the tequila is distilled and barreled, Garcia said.
The overall result is Dos Caras’ three tequila expressions: the blanco, the “representation of the brand,” Kekahuna says; the reposado, which rests in the virgin oak barrels for six to eight months; and the añejo, which takes about two years.
In a way, Arreguín said, the agave-to-tequila process truly emulates the Dos Caras slogan: “Be you; be all of you.”
“Dos Caras is agave being all it could be—from a planting, the eight years that it grew, all the way to this bottle where you sip it,” she said. “It’s agave being all it could be.”
Arreguín, who’s from Jalisco, Mexico, said it’s important that the taste of cooked agave comes through in a sip of Dos Caras. Her love for that flavor feels “innate,” she said, and she hopes others will fall in love with the product in the same way.
Even if it’s only “one person at a time,” Arreguín said, she’s going to change the perception that tequila is only something to throw back in a shot.
“You can enjoy a really good tequila like a fine wine or fine whiskey,” she said.
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