Like its location among the many Franklin Mountains within the Chihuahuan Desert, the Plaza Lodge Pioneer Park, in El Paso, is a dreamy mirage come true. Company would possibly really feel that hazy surreality when waking up within the nineteen-story high-rise, initially constructed in 1930 and designed by late native architect Henry Trost—particularly after a night within the basement’s Agave Room. Impressed by the tasting rooms of Jalisco, the lodge’s latest attraction will retailer a lot of the Plaza’s 1,200 tequila, mezcal, sotol, bacanora, and raicilla bottles, which common supervisor Adrian Gonzalez believes is the biggest and rarest agave-based spirits assortment in america.
When Gonzalez got here on board, a 12 months after the property reopened in 2020 following a 29-year closure and an funding of at the least $78 million from Franklin Mountain Investments CEO Paul Foster, he realized bartenders wanted simpler entry to the eight hundred labels provided on the lodge. That record contains more-recognizable spirits, reminiscent of tequila and mezcal, in addition to the more and more standard sotol; bacanora, made in Sonora from pacifica, or yaquiana, agave vegetation; and raicilla, a fruity, floral spirit from the western a part of Jalisco. Three years later, the Agave Room is now open for personal occasions, and starting in December, will probably be open for tasting menu dinners and weekly spirits tastings.
Refurbished by Edgar Lopez of the native In*Situ Structure agency, the Agave Room was beforehand a group of unused places of work and a janitor’s closet. Now it’s the most recent rollout within the lodge’s prolonged renovation, which additionally features a spa set to open in 2025. Together with the lodge’s new One Key Michelin award—the Plaza is the one property outdoors Austin, Dallas–Fort Price, and the Houston space to get the designation of “a very special stay” (and can also be the least costly)—the Agave Room is another excuse the restored Artwork Deco skyscraper stands out amid a broader lodge renaissance occurring in downtown El Paso.
Prickly pear art work. Courtesy of The Plaza Lodge Pioneer Park The Agave Room hosts an intensive assortment of tequilas, mezcals, sotols, bacanoras, and raicillas. Courtesy of The Plaza Lodge Pioneer Park
With customized mesquite cabinetry and a fourteen-seat desk hewn from black walnut, the room can also be embellished with a expressionist-like portray of flowering tunas by El Pasoan artist Patrick “Pico” Gabaldón. Saved within the subterranean room is the lodge’s most costly bottle, Patrón en Lalique, an extra-añejo tequila, obtainable for $10,000 or in particular person photographs for $800 apiece. It’s additionally shaken into “the world’s most expensive margarita,” which sells for $1,500 and features a 30 % donation to the El Paso Museum of Artwork Basis. It’s obtainable within the Agave Room and on the lodge’s Ámbar Restaurante and La Perla, the previous penthouse shared by Elizabeth Taylor and Conrad “Nicky” Hilton, the son of the lodge’s unique proprietor, Conrad Hilton. (La Perla is now El Paso’s highest rooftop bar, in addition to an in-demand spot for marriage proposals in a metropolis particularly suited to sensational sunsets.) Additionally within the Agave Room’s assortment are bottles not in manufacturing, reminiscent of Gran Patrón Smoky, a 50 % blanco tequila made by roasting agave with mesquite in underground stone pits, and Corralejo 1821 Additional Añejo, a double-distilled tequila aged for 3 years in American oak casks beforehand used for bourbon.
Gonzalez, the mastermind behind the lodge’s assortment, amassed data about tequilas from rising up in Mexico and a spending a protracted profession within the hospitality trade. He makes positive to inventory the few manufacturers that also craft tequila with conventional manufacturing strategies, together with Caballito Cerrero, run by fifteenth-generation tequileros in Guadalajara; Lalo Tequila, which prepares the spirit in line with the unique recipe of blue Weber agave, yeast, and water; and Tequila Ocho, a single-origin distillery that makes use of overripe agaves from the Golden Triangle of Los Altos de Jalisco. The Plaza Lodge is the primary entity importers and distributors contact after they get uncommon bottles or entry to new manufacturers, Gonzalez says: “We’re their best customer.”
Unavoidable in a dialogue about amassing tequila bottles is the exponential development of firms—and celebrities—investing within the spirit. When Gonzalez began consuming tequila, within the late Sixties, lengthy earlier than he reached the authorized consuming age, there have been about fifty manufacturers of tequila being produced in Jalisco, he estimates. Now, he says, he can’t sustain, calculating practically three thousand manufacturers being made by 200 households in Mexico’s 5 approved tequila areas: Jalisco, Guanajuato, Michoacan, Nayarit, and Tamaulipas.
A set of spirits on the Agave Room.Courtesy of The Plaza Lodge Pioneer Park
One potential purpose for tequila’s recognition is the unfold of Mexican eating places—one in ten eating places now serve Mexican meals within the U.S., in line with current findings from the Pew Analysis Heart. However the spirit’s rise owes extra to celebrities, Gonzalez speculates. Of all of the star-owned manufacturers, together with ones by George Clooney, Kendall Jenner, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, Michael Jordan, Matthew McConaughey, and Justin Timberlake, Gonzalez considers George Strait’s Código 1530, which makes its tequila with out components, to have the best-quality choices.
Celebrities additionally flock to the Plaza Lodge at Pioneer Park for luxe overnights with a view. Other than the lodge’s former well-known penthouse occupants, Khalid, Jared Leto, Ricky Martin, Chris Pine, Mike Tyson, and Mötley Crüe have all stayed because the property reopened. This summer season, Benicio del Toro, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Sean Penn spent three weeks within the lodge’s eleventh-floor Landmark Suites to shoot the upcoming Paul Thomas Anderson–directed movie The Battle of Baktan Cross. To evade public fawning, VIPs like them can achieve entry to the Agave Room from personal elevators. The remainder of us can sit up for December.
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