Patrón Just Dropped Its Boldest and Best Tequila Yet. Here’s Why It’s a Game Changer

Long before he ever made tequila, David Rodríguez García was paid to protect it. 

While Rodríguez is now well-known for being Patrón’s master distiller, in the mid‑1990s he was one of the very first inspectors hired by Mexico’s Tequila Regulatory Council (TRC). His job was to walk distillery floors, audit production methods, and make sure every bottle met the organization’s strict regulations. He spent years inside the country’s most storied facilities—Cuervo, Sauza, Herradura, Don Julio—observing and learning from some of Mexico’s greatest distillers how tequila was made.

Today, the man who once enforced the standards is now responsible for protecting one of the category’s largest brands. And his latest release, Patrón 100 ($50), is the clearest expression yet of how he thinks tequila should taste.

All Patrón expressions are made from Weber blue agave. When the plant reaches maturity after years of growing in the region's volcanic soil, it is harvested and roasted. It is then crushed to release its sugary sweet juice, which is fermented and distilled to make tequila. The brand uses both a modern roller‑mill to crush the agave as well as a traditional mill stone, which is called a tahona wheel. While the tahona wheel is much slower, traditionalists swear that it’s key to making high-quality tequila. It removes less of the agave’s natural fibers that ultimately contribute earthy, mineral notes and a rounder texture to the finished spirit. Rodríguez sees the difference every time visitors at the brand’s home, Hacienda Patrón, taste side-by-side tequila made from agave crushed by a roller mill and tequila made from agave crushed by a tahona wheel. “Seventy‑five percent choose tahona because it’s more complex,” he says.

Patrón used to produce a tequila made exclusively from tahona crushed agave, which was called Roca, but it was unfortunately and disappointingly discontinued several years ago. Its demise was long mourned by bartenders and tequila aficionados alike. 

Well, the brand just introduced a new tequila, Patrón 100 ($50), that will no doubt satisfy those who miss Roca, since it is made exclusively with agave crushed by tahona wheel. It’s the brand’s first distilled‑to‑proof tequila and is bottled at 100 proof (50% ABV) with no dilution. The idea came from a year of trials in Rodríguez’s lab. Distilling to proof, rather than watering down after distillation, keeps the aromatics clean and the agave character intact. But “high proof should mean high performance, not harshness,” he says.

I found the result is a blanco built for intensity without burn. Rodríguez describes the profile as sweet cooked agave layered with minerality, earthiness, and a touch of black pepper. High‑proof blancos have been gaining traction with professional bartenders for the liquor’s ability to hold structure in shaken and stirred drinks.

“With Patrón 100, you can feel the sweetness of the agave, the minerality, the earthy aromas,” he says. “It’s incredible to detect that at 50 percent.”

Rodríguez’s fixation on purity goes back to his earliest days in the industry. He trained as a biologist, writing his thesis on yeast and alcohol production before joining the CRT in 1994. The job gave him a panoramic view of the category at a pivotal moment. At the time, only about 40 tequila companies existed; today there are more than 200. Even then, he noticed how rare traditional methods were becoming rare. “Only 15 distillers produce tequila by tahona method,” he says. “Very few.”

One of the people he met during those years was Francisco Alcaraz, Patrón’s founding master distiller. Alcaraz recruited him to the brand in 2002, making Rodríguez the company’s first employee in Mexico. He rose through production roles before taking over as master distiller when Alcaraz retired in 2020. The mandate he inherited was simple: protect the process. Patrón now runs 18 tahona wheels—more than any producer in Mexico—and Rodríguez sees that scale not as a shortcut but as a responsibility. “We maintain the same process as the beginning,” he says. “We don’t change anything.”

His own palate is rooted in the raw material. “The sweetness of the agave is the main feature,” he says. He talks about minerality and earthiness the way a winemaker talks about soil, and he still prefers silver tequila above all. “I love to taste the agave. I love to taste the soul of the earth,” he says. 

After more than three decades in the industry, Rodríguez has watched tequila evolve from a rough, often misunderstood spirit into a global symbol of craft and luxury. He’s seen the rise in popularity of 100 percent agave spirits, the growth of small‑batch production, and the renewed interest in heritage methods. But his own mission hasn’t changed. 

“My first goal is to preserve our traditional, ancestral process,” he says. Patrón 100 cements that legacy.