Casa Noble Tequila Crystal

Came highly recommended, but I must say this bottle was one of my bigger tequila disappointments in the last year or so...

I drink silver tequilas exclusively, and only drink them neat. This bottle was displayed on the top shelf at my reputable liquor store and set me back $45; it should have been displayed between the Herradura and Tres Generaciones and cost about $35. I usually shy away from elaborate bottles (more money spent on the packaging means less money spent on the contents) and should have trusted my gut on this one. I have a feeling this tequila would be great were it only double-distilled, but after triple-distilling there's not much agave left. Very sharp alcohol taste and mediocre mouth feel. Very short finish, but given the poor initial flavor and body, the quick finish is this tequila's strongest asset. Reminds me of Don Eduardo, another disappointment in my book.

Certainly not the worst tequila I've ever had, but the worst tequila I've ever seen pulled off the top shelf.

Purchased from Discount Liquor in Waukesha, WI for 41.99. This tequila has more character than many of the rested and aged tequilas that I have tried.

Aroma-Agave, very sweet, I almost get a hint of chocolate
Initial taste-Well balanced, nice agave flavor with a hint of earthiness
finish- a hint of pepper and a slight, but enjoyable, bitter taste

This is the best blanco I have ever tried. It is so good I could drink it for dessert.

Tequila Casa Noble Crystal. 100% triple distilled. NOM 1137 La Cofradia. Tasted 10/18/08 in a Riedel glass. I bought this tequila from WineChateau.com for $35.00. This tequila earns the name crystal with its clear colorless appearance. A complex and unique nose that is sweet with clove, ginger, and ginsing and an overall deep musky agave note. This is maybe one of the most multi faceted blancos I've tried. Aroma, taste, and finish come alive in this true agave spirit. There is nothing boring about is blanco. First taste is peppery, citrus, young and green. The mouthfeel is smooth and silky but with immediate legs on the glass. A mellow agave taste heavy and oily on the tongue. A sweet creamy flavor midway that quickly fades into a fair amount of bitterness in the aftertaste with heat developing on the end. CNC from beginning to end is definitely a most unique experience. I've not come across another blanco quite like it. I do not use this tequila in a margarita, but enjoy its nuances and three pronged alure as a sipper. Nice easy to grip bottle with a embossed foil label and stopper. A simple but effective presentation.

As I noted in my review of the CN reposado, CN was very scarce and very expensive around here until recently. Actually, this blanco I got about a year ago, when my local liquor store seemed to get in about a case. I think I paid $29 a bottle. Probably mismarked or something for that time. An interesting thing happened re me re this blanco. I had really looked forward, based on on-line discussions, for years to getting some CN, really aiming for the reposado. When I first was drinking this, though, I was a maybe little disappointed. It seemed perhaps too smooth. Not as bad that way as Patron, but toward that. It is tripled distilled. I was thinking that maybe double distilled would have worked better. Good body and excellent finish though, and all the flavors that are there--and I would say that it has all of the complex agave flavors I so love--are good, balances, and complex. It just seemed to me that, say, a Don Julio or El Tesoro de Don Phillipe blanco had just about as good a nose, flavor, and finish, with good body, but with more intensity that the CN. Maybe others that have given lukewarm reviews have had similar initial experiences to me. However, since I have managed to get and have been drinking the CN reposado, it seems to somehow bring out aspects of the CN blanco that were not as apparent to me in the past. Now the CN blanco seems deeper and more nuanced to me, to have more "going on" in it that I have previously thought. It seems to have a purer agave flavor (pepper, citrus, spices, licorice (not sure re licorice) and "sweetness" (I think the sweetness is really in the aroma, I doubt that the sugar content is any higher than any other tequila) than the other blancos I really like. Other blancos taste a little less balanced to me now, their finishes a little less polished and less lingering. A few more slight off notes and hotness (although I like some "burn" in any tequila and the CN could perhaps use a little more) in the others some how. In any event, I find myself coming back to this CN blanco more consistently than to any other tequila, even the CNR, which I truly love, too, and I own a bunch of different tequilas and have tasted lots and lots more over the years. I could go for a bit more intensity. Like I say, maybe just double distilled or maybe even a more refined, and thus even more expensive, agave selection. This may well be my favorite tequila of any kind at this point. I may be more sensitive to agave specific tastes at this point that I was a year ago, and this tequila seems to present as pure an agave flavor profile as I can imagine. That and a stunning, pure, lingering finish. I have said it before, I think the finish separates the merely wonderful from the great, and this blanco has as good a finish as I have ever experienced in a tequila.

Tasted on 08/04/08 out of snifter. So I finally got around to tasting this blanco. I'm sad to say that i don't really think its all that great. It's not bad by any means. But I don't think it's the best either. It seems that I'm just not a huge fan of what comes out of this distillery.

Aroma: Agave, earth, spices.
Initial Taste: A little sweet, but weak. Yet no bitterness.
Body: Tasted very basic to me. Basic agave and earth.
Finish: Of medium duration, with no burn.

Just not very complex to me.