Educational Blind Tastings
Nathan and Ryan created the Colorado Agave Collective’s First Monday Events to be a first-of-its-kind concept: consumer-driven, palate-focused, educational, donation-based, agave spirit blind tastings, open to the public and held on the First Monday of every month. For these events we remove the commercialization from education while doing it bigger, better, and different. As a result, we do not participate in pay-to-play – meaning brands cannot buy their way into our First Monday bottle lineups. We choose an educational theme for each event and the bottles are picked solely based on what we feel best fits the theme. We do every tasting blind because it removes social media hype, paid influencer promotion, brand recognition, and bias from the equation. The only thing that matters is you and your palate.
We have created an inclusive environment for a shared experience in a comfortable, upscale, professional setting that is a safe space for people to speak up and expand their palate and knowledge. Every First Monday event takes place at Ni Tuyo, an elevated Mexican restaurant recently named one of “The 7 Best Mezcal Bars in the U.S.” by Food and Wine. The restaurant is closed on Mondays but the doors are opened exclusively for Colorado Agave Collective events where we see around 50 people every month who show up without even knowing what bottles are in the lineup.
We believe so strongly in what we are doing that we’ve made these events accessible to everyone (21+) who wants to learn and participate by asking attendees to donate based on what they feel the event is worth and what their budget allows. There is no set cost of admission and we do not pay ourselves for the work that goes into these events. We do it for the love of agave and we believe in the power of education!
We are not a tequila club and these events are not the typical tequila club tasting experience.
Blinding the Brands
Many brands approach the Colorado Agave Collective asking us to host them at our events. We will never allow our First Monday events to be a platform for drinking through a brand’s bottle lineup and pushing sales, but we do have a format that enables brands to come and represent themselves, on our terms: unbiased, consumer-driven, palate-focused, and blind.
To stay true to our values, while providing brands an opportunity to bring in a product and represent themselves, we have created “Blinding the Brands”, an event concept that benefits both the brands and the people in attendance.
- Every 4th month we use a First Monday event to host four brands with a bottle that fits the theme (ex: High Proof Blanco Tequila)
- Each brand gets five uninterrupted minutes to address the room
- All of the spirits go into a blind tasting
- We open up for group discussion on tasting notes and preferences before revealing the bottle
- The remaining time is open Q&A
This is an honest, transparent, and fair way to allow attendees to experience agave spirits at a tasting where they can share their real, pressure-free opinions, while also providing brands an opportunity to be seen and heard. But ultimately, the spirits have to speak for themselves.
Colorado Agave Collective 