Tequila isn’t just about pounding shots. In her new book, Tequila: A Tasting Course, multi-award-winning spirits writer Millie Milliken offers an accessible deep dive into Mexico’s most famous drink.
Published by Dorling Kindersley, the book is a practical guide that demystifies one of the world’s most misunderstood spirits. Milliken takes readers from the agave fields to the tasting glass, breaking down tequila’s history, production, and the people whose lives are bound up in it. Structured as both education and exploration, it introduces readers to tequila’s distinct regions, categories, and the artisans behind its production, many of whom she met when she was researching her book in Mexico.
Tequila: A Tasting Course sets out to answer the questions Milliken once had when she was new to the category: What makes tequila unique and who actually makes it? And how is it perceived and consumed by the different consumers that drink it around the world?
Structured as a two-part journey, the book first covers history, production, and people before moving into flavor, suggested cocktails, and 100 recommended tequilas chosen as representatives of the wider industry. It’s designed as a 101 for newcomers but carries enough depth for seasoned drinkers. Milliken’s approach blends cultural insight with practical guidance; how to taste, what to look for, and how tequila’s production process leads to such a wide spectrum of styles.
Her research took her across Mexico, from smaller artisanal distilleries to larger producers, with many of them each producing a large variety of brands.
This diversity, she argues, is both tequila’s strength and a source of confusion. Even within the industry, information can be contradictory. “You ask one person one question and you’ll get a very different answer compared to the next person you might ask the same question, so it does still seem to be a harder category to understand,” she notes. That complexity fueled her desire to write something clear-cut for consumers covering the story of tequila in a simple but comprehensive way.
Most importantly, the book shines a light on the human side of production. “The people who make tequila work very, very, very hard. And it was incredible to see it firsthand,” Milliken says. She documents the physical labor of harvesting agave, often done manually under brutally hot conditions, and the family histories embedded in the process. “It’s one of the most human spirits in the world; the physical labor that goes into making tequila versus other spirits that are far more revered is extraordinary”.
Ultimately, Tequila: A Tasting Course aims to reconnect the drink with the people who shape it, moving away from faceless marketing and toward an appreciation of craftsmanship. It’s both a guidebook and a reminder: tequila isn’t just a spirit, it’s the product of a wider community that includes families who have been involved in the industry for generations. Milliken finds that this human element is often lost when it comes to consumer perceptions of tequila and aims to correct the record: “In other categories, we understand who the master distiller is, the master blender. We get to see the people who make the spirit, and when it’s such a human spirit to not basically hardly know anything about the people who actually make it feels kind of insane to me.”
When asked about her favorite tequila, Milliken hesitates to answer given how many she’s fallen in love with, but she does have a top choice: Fortaleza Blanco. “The texture is super buttery—olive brine, celery, capers. It’s one of those kind of blancos where, if someone said to me they didn’t like tequila, I’d give it to them, and they probably wouldn’t even believe it was tequila.” To Milliken, the tequila encapsulates everything authentic about the category: traditional production, depth of flavor, and respect for craft.
Fortaleza’s story runs deep in tequila’s DNA. Founded in 2005 by Guillermo Sauza, a fifth-generation producer from the famed Sauza family, the distillery deliberately turns away from modern efficiency. It cooks agave in small brick ovens, crushes it using a stone tahona, and ferments in wooden tanks. “He wanted to take this back to kind of ancestral tequila-making production,” says Milliken.
Milliken’s other favorites include Ocho, known for its single-estate agaves; Don Fulano, made by the Fonseca family using both pot and Coffey stills; and Casa Dragones, celebrated for its creamy texture. The latter is made by Bertha González Nieves, the first woman to be certified as Maestra Tequilera by the Academia Mexicana de Catadores de Tequila.
But behind tequila’s success lie harsher realities for many of those who make it. The market is no longer enjoying a nonstop boom, leading to volatile agave prices and uncertain futures for farmers. “These are normally generational farmers who are still planting agave and trying to figure out how much to plant and whether they’re getting paid a fair amount of money,” says Milliken. Because agaves take years to mature, mismatched supply and demand can devastate livelihoods. “There’ve been stories of people burning agave fields because they can’t afford to tend to them anymore,” she explains. Market speculation and inconsistent pricing mean small growers often shoulder losses while large brands dominate exports.
A significant part of tequila’s boom can be credited to celebrity involvement, particularly George Clooney, but not without controversy. Clooney’s Casamigos brand, sold for $1 billion to Diageo in 2017, proved tequila could rival other spirits in prestige and profitability. Milliken is happy to admit that there are even some passably decent celebrity tequilas out there, but she also warns of the disconnect this created between fame and authenticity. “Celebrity tequila really takes us further away from the people who actually make tequila. We’re focusing on the wrong people,” she says.
This, Milliken argues, exposes a major awareness gap. Most drinkers outside Mexico have little sense of the labor behind each bottle: the jimadores who hand-harvest agaves, the families who distill in traditional ovens, or the sheer physical intensity of production. For her, true appreciation lies not in who endorses the bottle but in the stories and craftsmanship behind it.
That’s what makes Milliken’s book so valuable for anyone who wants to learn more about tequila. It succeeds as both a gateway and a guide. Milliken distills a complex drink involving an enormous amount of people into something approachable, giving readers the tools to taste with context and curiosity. For anyone ready to move past clichés and understand tequila’s true depth, her book is the ideal starting point.