Is your tequila seltzer actually tequila?

One is built on real tequila. The other has never been within a thousand miles of an agave field.

There is no way to tell from the front of the can. There is a very easy way to tell from the back.

Three things a real one will tell you

1. How it describes its base.

This is the fastest tell, and it’s usually printed in small type near the ingredients or the government warning.

“Made with tequila” or “tequila and sparkling water” — real spirit. “Tequila-flavored” — flavoring, not spirit. “Flavored malt beverage” or “malt beverage with natural flavors” — a malt base. No tequila in it at all.

That last category is enormous and it is completely legal. Malt-based drinks are cheaper to produce and easier to distribute, because in many places they can be sold anywhere beer is sold. There’s nothing shady about it. But it is not tequila, and a can that leans on tequila imagery while running on a malt base is letting you draw a conclusion it never actually stated.

2. A NOM number.

Four digits after the letters NOM, identifying the exact distillery in Mexico that produced the spirit. Every certified tequila carries one.

A can made outside Mexico isn’t legally required to print it — so its absence doesn’t automatically mean there’s no tequila inside. But its presence tells you something concrete and checkable, and a brand that has one has no reason to hide it.

3. Whether it says 100%.

If the base spirit is tequila, the next question is what kind. 100% de agave means every fermentable sugar came from blue Weber agave. If a label doesn’t make that claim, the spirit is a mixto — legally tequila, but as little as 51% agave.

No claim means no claim. Brands making the more expensive version say so.

The thirty-second version

1. Turn the can around. 2. Read how it describes its base — spirit, flavoring, or malt. 3. Look for NOM and four digits, and for “100% de agave.”

That’s the whole test. It works on ours. It works on everything else in the cooler.

Why we keep going on about this

Because we think the category got away with something.

Tequila is having a decade. Ready-to-drink is having a decade. It was inevitable that a lot of cans would show up wearing tequila’s clothes without paying for the ticket — and because the interesting information is printed in six-point type on the back, most people have never had a reason to look.

We’d rather you look. Including at us.

Lumi Sol is a tequila seltzer built on 100% real tequila distilled in Jalisco, carrying NOM 1658. Not a malt base. Not flavoring. That’s on the can, in type you can actually read, because the whole argument falls apart if you have to take our word for it.

#CheckTheCan