There’s the parade of international celebrities that come to town to promote their new tequila brands, and then there’s the under-the-radar local guys who quietly got their tequila into the hands of “mom and pop” package stores, top area restaurants and bars where consumers started to take notice before starting their media tour.
Meet Josh Irving and Pablo Antinori, two Dallas guys who launched Socorro tequila, an approachable yet high quality tequila that’s taking North Texas by storm, just in time for Cinco de Mayo celebrations.
Josh and Pablo have years of experience in spirits distribution and dining, respectively, and over many copitas of tequila, discussing the finer points and opportunities in the tequila space, decided they just wanted to make an approachable, amazing tequila.
No problem, right?
Not really, but it was stressful. Josh and his wife had their first baby in September 2019, the same month he quit his job to focus exclusively on producing and selling Socorro.
His second baby arrived in the last week of April 2020, when the first bottle of Socorro was finished, bottled, and ready to go into production. Josh and Pablo were thrilled until the reality of the pandemic set in and everything was shut down.
In reality, they were only temporarily set back. Knowing it wasn’t ideal to launch a brand during a pandemic but using that time to call on potential retail and restaurant outlets that were deemed essential businesses, Josh and Pablo kept working.
Josh has a long history of working with a premier beverage distributor and learned a great deal about getting a product in the hands of decision makers for restaurants and retail outlets. Pablo has extensive experience in the restaurant industry and has seen first-hand what spirits guests want, what they want to pay, and what’s in the marketplace. And they both were finely tuned in to the explosive growth of the tequila segment worldwide.
Socorro came to fruition after many days and nights of “market research.” Together, they’d sit around and taste tequilas that they liked, some they didn’t.
As bros often do, they commented and schemed and dreamed about making their own tequila, the product they wanted and felt wasn’t currently in the marketplace. Something “really delicious” but at “the people’s price point,” Josh says.
There are hundreds of tequilas in the market now. Ubiquitous tall white scepter-shaped bottles topped in silver with blue flowers trickling down the sides are found in nearly every restaurant and home bar, as are turquoise boxes emblazed with dragons or other mythical creatures. Pricey tequilas have become a bit of a status symbol.
Tequila production involves a basic process: grow, harvest, cook, crush, ferment, distill, and bottle. The best tequila respects ancestral production methods, which means using only mature agave from cultivated fields; cooking or roasting the agave in stone or brick ovens versus using acid-thermal hydrolysis; and extracting the agave through manual means using tahonas, or roller mills, rather than diffusers.
Luxury is in quality, not price, though. Socorro is a quality tequila. Its production methods, cooked in stone ovens, roller mill crushed, fermented in stainless steel tanks with proprietary yeast, and distilled in pot stills, respect traditions and cost time but the price point is well below well-known tequila brands that cut corners in production.
Brands that make tequila using acid-thermal hydrolysis and diffusers simply speed up the process so they can make more tequila faster, not better. To find out which brands use which methods, look them up on sites like Tequila Matchmaker, which also gives tasting notes from its contributors.
What does Socorro taste like? I’m partial to vanilla-y, caramelly flavors so I drink Socorro’s Reposado. It’s not artificially sweet like some tequilas so it’s perfect on its own or in a cocktail. The Blanco has a clean, peppery taste characteristic of Blanco expressions and is perfect for margaritas.
If you’d like to try it, head to Ramble Room in Snider Plaza.
Jon Alexis, owner of Ramble Room, raves about the product and its owners.
“Socorro is a great product and Josh and Pablo are such great guys. For every case of tequila they sell, they donate one case of water to the community where they produce.”
Jon is helping Socorro provide a lot of water. He says his top two selling cocktails at Ramble Room are tequila drinks. He adds that the top-selling entrees are the Bolognese and the Grilled Salmon. “People are becoming less formal about pairing their meals with their beverages. And, if you make a perfectly balanced cocktail, no matter what the spirit is, it goes with everything,” Alexis adds.
José on Lover’s Lane was among the first area restaurants to add Socorro to its bar program.
“Socorro Tequila has been a part of José’s cocktail program for three years,” said General Manager Victor Rojas. “We began using it in our Seasonal Flavored Frozen Margarita 2020. The tequila highlights the fruit component in a variety of flavors. Aside from the flavor, we made a commitment to Socorro Tequila and its owners because of the massive impact they make as part of their business.”
Victor was so impressed with Josh and Pablo’s tequila and their mission; he went to the Tequila region of Jalisco with them in 2021 and helped deliver 1250 cases of water to area orphanages and schools. They also spent afternoons after deliveries playing soccer and basketball with the kids.
Almost three years to the day the very first bottle was born, Socorro tequila is a popular seller in liquor stores, bars, and in restaurants.
It’s fun to tell success stories like this one. It’s even better when the entrepreneurs behind a great product are good humans, intent on making a positive mark on the community where they produce the product.
“Go do something selfless, it’ll change everything you thought you knew about happiness,” Pablo preaches, and he’s right. The word “Socorro” means “help” and through their company, they are doing just that.
