The 'Tequila Express' offers a high-spirited cultural ride

AMATITAN, Mexico — Travel is so educational. For instance, while riding the train to this small town in west-central Mexico, I learned that you can get tequila canned and mixed with Squirt, Coke or a tangy mango juice. Who knew?

Actually, taking the Tequila Express is likely to be the most fun you'll ever have on a factory tour — one that has been imaginatively expanded into a rollicking fiesta.

Yes, you will get a lesson in the history of the labor-intensive production of Mexico's national liquor. But you will also drink as much of it as you want while enjoying a 10-piece mariachi band, have a down-home buffet, watch an up-tempo variety show and perhaps take to the dance floor yourself.

Then you get back on the train for the return two-hour drink-and-music fiesta.

All of this is the Tequila Express tour, begun in 1997 to promote the liquor and the traditions of the Mexican state of Jalisco. The event is a 9 1/2-hour outing from Mexico's second-largest city, Guadalajara, to Amatitan, heart of tequila production country.

The Express rolls on five gaily painted, modern train cars that can each carry 68 passengers who are served drinks — tequila straight, the canned products, beer or soft drinks — with chips and salsa by waiters.

The strolling mariachis include six violins, two trumpets and two guitars, including one of those big ones that looks like it wants to be a cello. The musicians' garb is traditional: dress sombrero, short jacket and matching, tight-fitting pants with metal baubles along the outside seam. Members of the band occasionally take a turn on the vocals, as do the passengers, for Jalisco is said to be the birthplace of mariachi music.

When the musicians have moved on to another train car, a guide offers commentary in both Spanish and English on the countryside and history of tequila distilling.

The Express usually runs just Fridays through Sundays, but seasonally may add other days. It takes about two hours moseying the 25 miles between the metropolis and the distillery area. The view from the large windows quickly changes from cityscape to gently rolling hills of ocher and red soil lined with rows of the source of tequila — the tall, spiky-leafed blue agave plant.

Once at the Amatitan depot, train passengers board buses to tour the Hacienda San Jose del Refugio, home of the Herradura distillery.

Once inside the hacienda's gates, the buses drive along cobblestone streets to pass low adobe walls and, beyond them, the colorful buildings that house what is now the fifth generation of workers. These homes are passed down: Only a relative of the previous occupants can live within the hacienda.

Tequila has been distilled at Herradura — named for the lucky horseshoe the original owner found in a field here — since the mid 1800s.

Finally, the buses pass shining towers of the modern plant and discharge the passengers to watch the ancient process that leads to the distilling:

In white shirt and pants and wearing a broad straw hat against the sun, a farm worker called a jimador uses a sharp metal blade on a pole to slice the agave's long blue-green leaves from its above-ground base.

Standing more than a foot high and weighing more than 100 pounds, this bulbous part of the plant is called a pineapple, which it now resembles.

This trimming demonstration takes place a few yards from huge mounds of the pineapples, which workers cut in two and then shovel into large steam ovens. The halves are cooked for 26 hours.

It will take at least 50 pounds of this pineapple, which is filled with a sweet pulp, to ultimately produce 5 liters of tequila.

After distillation, tequila is aged from 14 days to three or more years, and then it is bottled for sale. The longer it ages, the smoother the taste.

Part of the multistep process is explained by the guide, part of it comes during a video shown within the restored, 1870 distillery building. This structure held underground vats and huge copper stills, all part of the tour, though subtly lit.

The video ends the educational part of the day; now it's out to a buffet line within an open area of the old structure. Once seated, the tourgoers are served more drinks while they enjoy a 90-minute variety show:

The tireless mariachis who serenaded the train passengers are now on stage, playing for beautifully costumed dancers, as well as a male and a female vocalist. Three generations of a family perform roping tricks, skipping through each other's twirling lariats — Jalisco produced not only tequila and the mariachi but also the cowboy known as a charro, who in turn created the rodeo called charreria, hence the ropes.

Finally, everyone is invited onto the dance floor. Young lovers, parents with youngsters, turistas and locals alike fashion dance steps to the music.

There's time to browse the mini gift shop — Herradura's own tequila is on sale amid the handicrafts, but it's all low pressure — and then back to the Express for the ride to Guadalajara.

A pretour tip: Be sure to arrange for someone else to get you back to the hotel— you shouldn't be behind the wheel after riding the Express.

Robert N. Jenkins is former travel editor of the Times.