Billed as “the Caribbean’s largest agave festival”, hundreds of people attended the second annual Fiesta de Agave at Kimpton Seafire Resort + Spa and Hotel Indigo Grand Cayman to learn about tequila, mezcal and to sample Mexican cuisine and cocktails.
The three-day festival brought in top producers and mixologists from around the world to host 23 events across Grand Cayman, with a packed schedule of tastings, seminars, discussions and masterclasses culminating in a grand finale at Kimpton’s waterfront Beach Deck.
The focus of the festival was the agave plant, a succulent grown across Mexico, Latin America and also here in the Cayman Islands. Many people are familiar with tequila, which is made from blue agave, but there are hundreds of different varieties of the plant which are used to make other drinks such as mezcal and less familiar names such as raicilla and bacanora, which were all available to try at the festival.
Jim Wrigley, beverage manager for Kimpton and co-founder of Fiesta de Agave, said that the idea for the festival came during a discussion – over drinks, naturally – “about how there were so many amazing agave spirits and distributors with these wonderful products. So why don’t we have a thing where everyone comes together, kind of like Cayman cocktail week, but focused on a particular category?”
He added, “If people already know tequila and love it, they might expand their knowledge a little bit, and if they don’t know tequila, they might love it or even discover another agave experience.”
Tequila and mezcal are booming in popularity at the moment, which, says Wrigley, is down to more adventurous consumer tastes.
“I think a lot of consumers these days are a little bit more educated and they want to align with different flavour profiles. The drinks featured here have an incredible array of stories and flavours and history,” Wrigley said.
Bars across Grand Cayman were involved in the Fiesta de Agave with many attending the Grand Finale to show off their signature agave cocktails. Following the success of this year’s event, Wrigley said that he is optimistic that the festival could become a regular highlight of Cayman’s culinary calendar.
“We’ll see what the feedback is from people, we’ll see what we have learned and what more we can learn,” he said. “Then hopefully, you know, cross fingers, if everyone says I would like more Fiesta de Agave, then we’ll be back next year.”
Wrigley says that events such as Cayman Cookout are an inspiration.
“I think Cayman Cookout is amazing,” he said. “They built it organically over the years and there’s so much diversity in there, where they bring people from around the world. It would be wonderful to do something like that.”
Wrigley added that he would like to see Fiesta de Agave become a regular event.
“The tequila and agave experience is all about fun,” he said. “They’re about love and sharing food and getting to know each other and dancing to music and all of that kind of stuff. So that’s really what we want to do.”
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