Steamboat Springs to Jalisco, Mexico.

Made at Hacienda de Reyes by the family that has been making tequila on this land for generations. The bottles are here.

The Bottle

Chapter Six

The Hacienda

Chapter Five

The Agave

Chapter Four

Dano — short for Danny Thompson — grew up in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. In the basement of his house, he took a bottle of tequila someone had brought back from Mexico and put pineapple and jalapeño in it. He let it sit. When friends came over, he poured it. The friends asked for more. He made more. They asked again. The basement became a problem the basement could not solve.

The Road South

In 2017, Dano and his partner Chris drove south, looking for a hacienda in Mexico that could make the recipe properly. Not at industrial scale. Not with diffusers and additives and flavoring agents pretending to be fruit. They were looking for a family who would let them recreate, by the right hands and at the right speed, the tequila Dano had been making in a Steamboat Springs basement.

Steamboat Springs

Dano — short for Danny Thompson — grew up in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. In the basement of his house, he took a bottle of tequila someone had brought back from Mexico and put pineapple and jalapeño in it. He let it sit. When friends came over, he poured it. The friends asked for more. He made more. They asked again. The basement became a problem the basement could not solve.

The Gate

Hacienda de Reyes is one of the oldest working haciendas in Mexico — copper stills, stone hornos, a recipe held across generations by the Reyes family in Tequila, Jalisco. In 2017, Silvia Reyes Valadez, the matriarch of the house, met Dano and Chris at the gate. The visions aligned. The agreement was made. The hacienda is still there. Silvia is still the matriarch. The recipe is still the family's.

The Agave

Blue Weber agave grows in the estate fields at Hacienda de Reyes in Tequila, Jalisco. Eight to ten years in the ground before it is ready. Every bottle of Dano's starts with this plant — Agave tequilana Weber, blue variety, harvested only when fully mature. No mixto. No accelerated growth. The agave does the long work, and everything that follows is downstream of it.

Steamboat Springs

Dano — short for Danny Thompson — grew up in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. In the basement of his house, he took a bottle of tequila someone had brought back from Mexico and put pineapple and jalapeño in it. He let it sit. When friends came over, he poured it. The friends asked for more. He made more. They asked again. The basement became a problem the basement could not solve.

The Hacienda

Inside Hacienda de Reyes, Dano's tequila is made the slow way. The agave is steam-cooked in stone hornos for thirty-six to seventy-two hours — patient, gentle, complete. Then the spirit passes twice through round-shouldered copper stills the Reyes family has been working for generations. Copper draws out the unwanted compounds. The result is clean, bright, and itself.

The Bottle

Every bottle of Dano's on the shelf today is made at Hacienda de Reyes in Tequila, Jalisco — by the Reyes family, on copper stills they have been working for generations, with Blue Weber agave from the estate fields. The brand began in a basement in Steamboat Springs. The brand lives at Casa de Reyes.