Memphian McCauley Williams put his heart and soul into creating Alma del Jaguar tequila.
Alma del Jaguar means “soul or spirit of the jaguar,” says Williams, 34.
And Williams, founder of Morningside Brands, has a big heart. “Our goal is to donate 10 percent of our profits to support wild jaguar conservation in Mexico,” he says.
His tequila is now available in five states. “With another 15 states to come on line in the next 16 months.
“We’ve seen amazing sales from right out of the gate. We were profitable as a business in our first month of sales, which is remarkable.”
And, Williams says, “We won platinum medals at both of the ASCOT [American Spirits Council of Tasters] Awards and SIP Awards, which are two of the leading spirit competitions in the country.”
Esquire listed Alma del Jaguar as one of “The 28 Best Tequila Brands to Drink in 2023.”
In 2022, Williams left Blue Note Bourbon, which he co-founded, to explore other opportunities. “I’d always wanted to do something with my uncle, Rick Williams, since I was a child because of his amazing commitment to wild jaguar conservation in Mexico.
“About 25 years ago Rick moved to Mexico as a wildlife photographer to study wild jaguars with a team of biologists. He then co-founded the Northern Jaguar Project, which is a binational effort between biologists and conservationists in the United States and Mexico to study and protect the northernmost population of wild jaguars in the world.
“He also founded the Northern Jaguar Reserve, a 60,000-acre wildlife refuge in Mexico, where the wild jaguars actually live and breathe.”
McCauley wanted to “create a spirit brand” that raised awareness about wild jaguar conservation. “The reason it is important is this reserve and the cats they are studying are in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. And they cross the border. Jaguars come into our country and are native to our country.”
Environmental conservation of our borderlands is “a hot political topic when it comes to drugs, immigration, trafficking of any illegal goods.”
“So, by talking about jaguar conservation, we are literally talking about saving these big cats but also raising awareness about environmental conservation.”
McCauley got the ball rolling in 2022. “I bought a plane ticket to Guadalajara, Mexico, and rented a car and drove all around Mexico meeting with every tequila distillery that would see me.”
He chose a “fifth-generation tequila-making family — the Vivanco family. They’re in the Los Altos region of Jalisco, Mexico, a small farming community. They make some of the best tequila in the world. It’s a small operation. And they produce it all sustainably without chemicals.”
“We knew we needed the right partner for this brand. They shared our passion for protecting the land.”
McCauley spent “about nine months designing a recipe — a unique flavor profile for our tequila.”
His first batch was imported last March. “I have two different expressions right now. And we’re working on a third. Our Blanco tequila is unaged. And then our Reposado is rested in French oak wine casks that I bought in Santa Barbara, California, and then shipped to New Mexico.”
The new one is his Anejo. “That one we age for over a year in those French oak wine barrels. That will be released next spring.”
For the Blanco, McCauley says, “I hired one of the legendary master distillers, Sergio Cruz, to help me design a flavor profile that really embodied the elements of terroir,” a French word for the tastes and smells present in a drink based on the natural ecosystem in which it was made.
He wanted the Blanco to “taste the way the Vivanco family ranch smelled. It’s clean, pure. There’s elements of mineralogy, citrus, and spice. And we achieved that through using really old techniques of fermentation. Meaning most tequilas and distilled spirits use a cultivated yeast from a lab. We let the tanks sit open to let Mother Nature naturally ferment due to wild yeast that naturally occurs in the air.”
McCauley, who currently is “building an entire portfolio of spirit brands,” says his products are about sharing “good times and experiences together in camaraderie and fellowship.”
Alma del Jaguar is “the manifestation of those good times.”
