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By Kathleen Furore
Tequila class at Salena's Mexican Restaurant
More than a decade ago, Aaron Metras, owner of Salena’s Mexican Restaurant in Rochester, New York, launched tequila classes to educate customers about the nuances of the popular Mexican spirit. Today, those monthly classes — which explain the history of tequila and agave, how the products are made, and what make a tequila good or bad — are still entertaining and educating patrons who also get to enjoy samples of the spirits, along with chips and salsa, all for just $35 per ticket. The most recent session focused on agave; upcoming classes including Tequila & the Day of the Dead, Fall Into Tequila, and Holiday Cocktails.
The events have been so popular that Salena’s has added corporate team building workshops that show how companies can apply the lessons of quality tequila production to help their teams, too.
Here, Metras explains the genesis of the classes and how the events continue to educate customers while building business at Salena’s.
Aaron Metras
el Restaurante: How did you come up with the idea for the seminars 10+ years ago?
Aaron Metras: We realized that there was a lot of misinformation out there. We had had our own bad experiences with mixto tequila and thought we didn't like it. As we learned about tequila and its cultural history, we felt it was a story to be shared. We took a few distillery tours and were hooked — and we wanted to hook other people also. We put together a loose curriculum mostly for staff. In 2014, my brother did a bartender-to-work program through Fortaleza and when he came back he took over the classes. He created an amazing presentation which is the outline of what we follow today.
el Restaurante: How do the classes work? Do tequila companies help fund the events and make presentations?
Metras: Our classes consist of 7½-oz. tastings over an hour and a half to two hours. We review the entire process of tequila making from growing and harvesting the agave to distilling. We discuss all the ways the different steps of the process impact the final product. Throughout the class, we explore guided tastings, focusing on aroma and palate. We include a variety of ages of tequila, and depending on the class we may include mezcals and agave spirits.
I wish more tequila companies funded the events, but the ones most willing to do so are the big budget, mass produced companies. Most of our classes focus on the traditional processes used by smaller distillers. These distillers tend not to have large advertising budgets, so we put them on ourselves. Occasionally, we will have brand participation. We had Alan Camarena of G4 Zoom in for a class and we have done lineups with Casa Noble.
el Restaurante: How popular have the classes been with customers? Do you think they’ve
helped grow your business?
Metras: We do a class once a month and they always sell out at 16 people. We also do several private classes a year. They are great for business. Not only are we able to educate our guests about a core product — the classes allow us to build relationships with the guests, as well. I have had numerous guests return to another class, sometimes three or four times!
el Restaurante: You also started the corporate workshops. When did those start and how do they work?
Metras: In the post-Covid era, we are always looking for the best ways to engage customers in new ways. My wife and I put together our backgrounds in human services and development and created a workshop using the principles of well-made tequila. Focusing on quality and adherence to tradition sometimes creates a tension with modernization and efficiency and these lessons transfer to almost any organization. There is a balance that must be achieved. Self-reflection and tequila create a great combination! Some activities include creating a personal profile based on your "Margarita type," exploring communication through aroma and taste descriptions, and problem solving based on real-life scenarios faced in the tequila industry.
el Restaurante: Do you have any examples of companies that have participated and why they chose to take the workshop?
Metras: Nurses seem to be the most popular group, followed by teachers and corporate teams. I think it appeals to folks in high stress jobs.
Click here to go to the next article, Mexican Wines: 10 Quality Vintages Available in the U.S. Now