Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Grover Sanschagrin is the co-founder, alongside his wife Scarlet, of Agave Matchmaker — the platform, formerly known as Tequila Matchmaker, that has spent over a decade cataloguing how tequila and other agave spirits are actually made. Grover found tequila through Scarlet, who discovered it while working as a journalist in Mexico City, and the pair went on to live in Guadalajara, at the heart of Mexico's tequila region, for eight years, visiting hundreds of distilleries and eventually building an app now used by over 400,000 people to navigate a notoriously opaque category.
Grover walks us through how additives — both the legally permitted abocantes (glycerin, caramel colour, oak extract, sugar syrup) and a wider set of undisclosed synthetic ingredients — found their way into a huge share of the market, which by his and Scarlet's own estimate runs as high as 85%, and how their attempt to flag which products were additive-free grew from a simple checkbox into a full verification programme built on sensory training and, eventually, laboratory testing.
That work made them two of the most influential, and for parts of the industry most uncomfortable, voices in tequila, and in March 2024 their home in Guadalajara was raided by federal agents while they were thousands of miles away in New York — an experience Grover walks us through in detail. Their legal situation is still working its way through the courts, so there's a fair amount here we've had to leave out or keep light on for now, and we've deliberately avoided naming the parties involved directly.
Grover also gives us his read on the recent wave of US class-action lawsuits alleging that some major tequila brands, including names linked to Diageo, Costco and Michael Jordan, fall well short of their 100% agave claims, and we close out talking about where tequila and the wider agave spirits category — now expanding well beyond Mexico's borders — goes from here, plus a look at Rispetto, his own traditionally-made agave syrup.
00:00 – Cold open: armed agents raid their home in Guadalajara
00:18 – How they found out — a text from the maintenance guy
02:01 – How tequila found Grover: the Scarlet origin story
04:19 – Agave, terroir, and the pull of the rabbit hole
06:22 – From photojournalist to full-time tequila obsessive
08:37 – Why label laws keep tequila's transparency problem alive
09:29 – Two years in the tequila region, and the birth of the app
11:24 – Fortaleza, and the moment quality became visible
15:43 – The slow erosion of "100% agave" as a quality marker
17:14 – Diffusers, demystified
21:19 – Why price tells you nothing about what's in the bottle
22:23 – From aficionado rage to a more balanced view
23:23 – Becoming a presenter of information, not opinion
24:15 – How the matchmaking algorithm actually works
27:27 – The blending problem: tequila traded between distilleries
29:17 – Blind tasting, and the tyranny of the label
34:54 – What actually goes into "non-additive-free" tequila
42:14 – The real transparency problem, and who it hurts
44:59 – A short history of regulatory compromise
46:20 – Not everyone actually likes the taste of agave
48:42 – Building the Additive-Free programme properly
49:33 – Sensorial training, then discovering lab testing
52:28 – 100+ brands tested, and the pushback that followed
54:08 – The numbers: rising sales, and an ~85% estimate
55:09 – Suspending the list as things got "hot"
56:01 – The personal cost of the last two and a half years
59:17 – Setting the record straight: never a war on the industry
59:49 – The class actions: Diageo, Costco, Michael Jordan's Cincoro
1:00:52 – Rumours vs. lab tests: were they surprised?
1:03:19 – What happens to consumer trust if the cases are upheld
1:04:01 – What's genuinely exciting in agave spirits right now
1:05:42 – The rise of non-Mexican agave spirits
1:08:14 – Has Grover's own drinking habits shifted?
1:09:36 – The risk: could scandal push drinkers toward mezcal?
1:10:21 – Rebuilding the app: Tequila Matchmaker becomes Agave Matchmaker
1:12:01 – Grover's side project: Rispetto agave syrup
1:13:24 – How a traditionally-made syrup differs from industrial ones
1:16:44 – Where to find it, and closing thoughts
🍋🟩 Fever-Tree - For the very best mixers that taste pretty damn good even by themselves
☕ Algebra Drinks - The world's best coffee liqueur (partly because it's low in sugar - get 15% off at algebradrinks.com with the code CURIOUS15
🌾 Belvedere Vodka - Organic vodka, with substance, made from Polish rye and absolutely no additives.
🍷 Denver & Liely - The best glassware on the planet - get 15% off at denverandliely.com with the code CURIOUS15
📷 Follow me on Instagram - instagram.com/tristanstephenson
📚 I've written quite a few books on spirits and cocktails - thecuriousbartender.com
Grover Sanschagrin is the co-founder, alongside his wife Scarlet, of Agave Matchmaker — the platform, formerly known as Tequila Matchmaker, that has spent over a decade cataloguing how tequila and other agave spirits are actually made. Grover found tequila through Scarlet, who discovered it while working as a journalist in Mexico City, and the pair went on to live in Guadalajara, at the heart of Mexico's tequila region, for eight years, visiting hundreds of distilleries and eventually building an app now used by over 400,000 people to navigate a notoriously opaque category.
Grover walks us through how additives — both the legally permitted abocantes (glycerin, caramel colour, oak extract, sugar syrup) and a wider set of undisclosed synthetic ingredients — found their way into a huge share of the market, which by his and Scarlet's own estimate runs as high as 85%, and how their attempt to flag which products were additive-free grew from a simple checkbox into a full verification programme built on sensory training and, eventually, laboratory testing.
That work made them two of the most influential, and for parts of the industry most uncomfortable, voices in tequila, and in March 2024 their home in Guadalajara was raided by federal agents while they were thousands of miles away in New York — an experience Grover walks us through in detail. Their legal situation is still working its way through the courts, so there's a fair amount here we've had to leave out or keep light on for now, and we've deliberately avoided naming the parties involved directly.
Grover also gives us his read on the recent wave of US class-action lawsuits alleging that some major tequila brands, including names linked to Diageo, Costco and Michael Jordan, fall well short of their 100% agave claims, and we close out talking about where tequila and the wider agave spirits category — now expanding well beyond Mexico's borders — goes from here, plus a look at Rispetto, his own traditionally-made agave syrup.
00:00 – Cold open: armed agents raid their home in Guadalajara
00:18 – How they found out — a text from the maintenance guy
02:01 – How tequila found Grover: the Scarlet origin story
04:19 – Agave, terroir, and the pull of the rabbit hole
06:22 – From photojournalist to full-time tequila obsessive
08:37 – Why label laws keep tequila's transparency problem alive
09:29 – Two years in the tequila region, and the birth of the app
11:24 – Fortaleza, and the moment quality became visible
15:43 – The slow erosion of "100% agave" as a quality marker
17:14 – Diffusers, demystified
21:19 – Why price tells you nothing about what's in the bottle
22:23 – From aficionado rage to a more balanced view
23:23 – Becoming a presenter of information, not opinion
24:15 – How the matchmaking algorithm actually works
27:27 – The blending problem: tequila traded between distilleries
29:17 – Blind tasting, and the tyranny of the label
34:54 – What actually goes into "non-additive-free" tequila
42:14 – The real transparency problem, and who it hurts
44:59 – A short history of regulatory compromise
46:20 – Not everyone actually likes the taste of agave
48:42 – Building the Additive-Free programme properly
49:33 – Sensorial training, then discovering lab testing
52:28 – 100+ brands tested, and the pushback that followed
54:08 – The numbers: rising sales, and an ~85% estimate
55:09 – Suspending the list as things got "hot"
56:01 – The personal cost of the last two and a half years
59:17 – Setting the record straight: never a war on the industry
59:49 – The class actions: Diageo, Costco, Michael Jordan's Cincoro
1:00:52 – Rumours vs. lab tests: were they surprised?
1:03:19 – What happens to consumer trust if the cases are upheld
1:04:01 – What's genuinely exciting in agave spirits right now
1:05:42 – The rise of non-Mexican agave spirits
1:08:14 – Has Grover's own drinking habits shifted?
1:09:36 – The risk: could scandal push drinkers toward mezcal?
1:10:21 – Rebuilding the app: Tequila Matchmaker becomes Agave Matchmaker
1:12:01 – Grover's side project: Rispetto agave syrup
1:13:24 – How a traditionally-made syrup differs from industrial ones
1:16:44 – Where to find it, and closing thoughts
🍋🟩 Fever-Tree - For the very best mixers that taste pretty damn good even by themselves
☕ Algebra Drinks - The world's best coffee liqueur (partly because it's low in sugar - get 15% off at algebradrinks.com with the code CURIOUS15
🌾 Belvedere Vodka - Organic vodka, with substance, made from Polish rye and absolutely no additives.
🍷 Denver & Liely - The best glassware on the planet - get 15% off at denverandliely.com with the code CURIOUS15
📷 Follow me on Instagram - instagram.com/tristanstephenson
📚 I've written quite a few books on spirits and cocktails - thecuriousbartender.com
