Steamboat to Jalisco
A basement recipe. A gate in Mexico. A family that said yes. This is how Dano's got made.
Steamboat Springs
Dano — short for Danny Thompson — lived in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. In the basement of his house, he took a bottle of tequila someone had brought back from Mexico and put pineapple and jalapeño in it. He let it sit. When friends came over, he poured it. The friends asked for more. He made more. They asked again. The basement became a problem the basement could not solve.
The Road South
In 2017, Dano and his partner Chris drove south, looking for a hacienda in Mexico that could make the recipe properly. Not at industrial scale. Not with diffusers and additives and flavoring agents pretending to be fruit. They were looking for a family who would let them recreate, by the right hands and at the right speed, the tequila Dano had been making in a Steamboat Springs basement.
The Gate
Hacienda de Reyes is the second-oldest working hacienda in Mexico — copper stills, stone hornos, a recipe held across six generations by the Reyes family in Tequila, Jalisco. In 2017, Silvia Reyes Valadez, the matriarch of the house, met Dano and Chris at the gate. She runs the hacienda. She always has. The visions aligned. The agreement was made. The hacienda is still there. Silvia is still in charge.
The Agave
Blue Weber agave grows in the estate fields at Hacienda de Reyes in Tequila, Jalisco. Eight to ten years in the ground before it is ready. Every bottle of Dano's starts with this plant — Agave tequilana Weber, blue variety, harvested only when fully mature. No mixto. No accelerated growth. The agave does the long work, and everything that follows is downstream of it.
The Hacienda
Inside Hacienda de Reyes, Dano's tequila is made the slow way. The agave is steam-cooked in stone hornos for thirty-six to seventy-two hours — patient, gentle, complete. Then the spirit passes twice through round-shouldered copper stills the Reyes family has been working for generations. Copper draws out the unwanted compounds. The result is clean, bright, and itself.
The Bottle
Every bottle of Dano's on the shelf today is made at Hacienda de Reyes in Tequila, Jalisco — by the Reyes family, on copper stills they have been working for generations, with Blue Weber agave from the estate fields. The brand began in a basement in Steamboat Springs. The brand lives at Casa de Reyes. Six generations. Same family. Same land.
