Here in the Heide we used to drink the stuff with salt and lemon.

Moisten the back of your hand with a wedge of lemon, salt it, lick it off, pour down the tequila and finally bite into the lemon.

An amusement that is as dubious as it is effective, the devastating effect of which was only surpassed by the equally popular Sambuca-Baileys shots.

Later in Hamburg we also got to know the version with cinnamon and orange and the brown tequila, the really hard ones sucked coffee powder instead of cinnamon from the back of the hand - we remember with shudders.

Peter Badenhop

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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We really learned to fear the agave schnapps during our studies in London: There it was brought to the party people as a tequila slammer.

You need a really sturdy shot glass, like the kind that old westerns fill to the brim with cheap whiskey.

Such a thick-walled shot glass is filled halfway with tequila and halfway with ginger ale or sprite for the slammer, but not all the way to the brim.

Then the glass is covered with one hand and hit with force on the table or counter with the other.

In a completely different league

The foaming content is poured down immediately.

The effect is impressive and can be significantly increased by using sparkling wine or prosecco instead of lemonade.

Not for the faint of heart - or stomachs.

Which brings us to Jim Breuer.

The man is a heavy metal stand-up comedian of sorts, and he did a great skit about tequila and its nasty potential 20 years ago called "Party in the Stomach" (available on Spotify and Youtube), any celebration to end up thoroughly ruining.

What does all this have to do with the reposado of Volcán de mi Tierra?

Basically nothing, because this tequila is of course in a completely different league.

Apart from the fact that it is also distilled from agaves, it has little to do with the cheap bottles of our youth with red and gold caps.

It is much more one of those premium tequilas that has been making its way into bars and glasses in the course of the agave schnapps wave that has also been sloshing through Europe for several years.

Like the brand's other two tequilas - the clear, young Volcán Blanco and the Volcán Cristalino, which is aged in former whiskey and cognac casks - the Reposado, which is now being launched in Germany, is a real craft tequila, an in Small batches of handcrafted luxury brand, which cannot be compared with the classic industrial tequilas - and therefore also has its price at just under 50 euros per bottle.

Doubly distilled from blue Weber agaves in the highlands of the Mexican state of Jalisco and then stored in oak barrels for four and a half months, you don't just tip it down, you drink this enormously aromatic and complex schnapps more like a high-quality whiskey or gin, i.e. pure, on ice or in classic cocktails.

Completely on its own, i.e. at around 18 degrees and without any further additions, the Reposado shows, in addition to the typical agave aromas, many fruity, nutty and slightly honey-like hints, tobacco and roasted notes are added in the mouth and, above all, a remarkable mild full-bodiedness , which one does not actually expect with tequila.

It comes into its own as an Old Fashioned (6 cl Reposado, 1cl agave syrup and a dash of Angostura bitters).

And as a refreshing summer drink, an "El Diablo" is recommended: fill a long drink glass with ice and two lime wedges, then pour over 5 cl Reposado, then 12 cl ginger ale and finally 1 cl cassis liqueur.

In any case, we will not pour this good drop down with salt and lemon or as a slammer.

The times are over.