Paladar is the newer project of the Orendain family, one of the last independent founding families still making tequila in the town of Tequila, Jalisco, and the people behind Arette. Master distiller Eduardo Orendain Jr. makes it the slow way: seven-year blue Weber agave from the family's own fields, cooked in brick ovens, fermented in open-air pine boxes with a proprietary and wild yeast blend, and twice distilled through a mix of copper and stainless alembic stills. Every bottle is hand-dipped in volcanic soil from the agave fields, which is why the base of the bottle looks the way it does. The range starts with the Blanco and the Blanco Still Strength, the same spirit bottled straight off the still with no water added at 101 proof, and moves through the Reposado and a Single Barrel Series Añejo. Where Paladar really stands apart is in finishing: a series of reposados finished in wine casks such as Tempranillo, Barolo, and Sauternes, a Toasted Series in American and French oak, and an amburana-wood release that has to be labeled Destilado de Agave because the Brazilian hardwood isn't on the approved list for tequila, even though it's the same agave spirit from the same stills. Serious, family-made, and priced under the celebrity brands.

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