In the highlands of Jalisco, swatches of land are covered in green and steel gray. It’s the color of the blue Weber agave—the plant from which tequila, mezcal and sotol are derived. The Mexican state is also the birthplace of charros, the Mexican cowboys who live by four pillars: God, patria (the homeland), their woman and their horse.
Jesús Azpeitia Morales, who prefers the name El Chato (a nickname given to people with a flat nose), is the embodiment of this Mexican heritage. “With El Chato, you’re going to encounter a special kind of Mexican cowboy,” says Roberto Nuñez, Patrón’s national ambassador and a Jalisco native who grew up hearing tales of the bar owner. “At 87, he still has a lot of style. He serves with flair.” He’s also the creator of one of the most famous drinks in the region: the Chatazo.
Jaliscienses live by the motto of “¡No te rajes!”—“never back down.” It’s a saying that explains how El Chato became one of Atotonilco el Alto’s savviest businessmen, despite lacking a formal education of any kind; he even taught himself to read and write.
Atotonilco el Alto, located a two-hour drive east of Guadalajara (one of Mexico’s largest cities), might not ring any bells, but there’s a good chance its products do. The town is home to the three biggest tequila producers: Don Julio, Patrón and Siete Leguas. It’s a place ruled by the tequila industry, where “almost everyone works for a distillery in some capacity or another,” says Victor Manuel Villalobos Vazquez, a driver for local haciendas. Like most people in town, he has known El Chato and his bar, which doesn’t have a formal name, for decades: “If you ask for La Cantina del Chato, everyone knows what you’re referring to. Ask a dog and even it’ll know.”
The Chatazo, named after its creator, is a simple drink. It was born from El Chato’s disdain for soda, and it combines about two parts fresh grapefruit juice with one part tequila. The local agave’s herbaceous notes blend with the tart, floral citrus; the drink is crisp and earthy. El Chato has served it up for 65 years.
El Chato created the signature drink while he was working at Balneario los Chorritos, an outdoor water park powered by natural springs, where he served it at special events. Eventually, he opened his own bar. “You gotta take risks,” he says. “Put up a business. If it succeeds, great. If it doesn’t, who cares?”
El Chato’s recipe follows the Mesoamerican milpa principle of “What grows together, goes together,” says Mexican chef Alex Henry, of El Molino del Sureste. That same principle, however, has changed El Chato’s beverage. The original Chatazo was tequila paired with lima, a sweeter version of a lime. But the land in Atotonilco el Alto began to change hands, and farmers switched their focus from lima production to grapefruit to meet consumer demand. Now, it’s evolving once again. As agave replaces local production of citrus, reflecting the growing global thirst for tequila, El Chato now has to source his grapefruit from other states like Michoacán, Sinaloa and Veracruz. His business acumen—perhaps that ¡No te rajes! mentality—led him to launch his own company producing grapefruit juice (also named El Chato), which he sells by the gallon to Patrón, Siete Leguas and other businesses in the area.
To visit El Chato’s bar, it’s best to simply ask someone in the town’s main square to point you in the right direction. The entrance is unmarked, tucked just off the corner. It’s easy to miss.
“It’s not super elegant,” says Nuñez. “You walk up the stairs and you see three men seated. It’s unclear if they work there or if they’re customers. They’ll ask what you want because they know their regulars, and you’re not one of them… It’s a jarring experience, but once you work through that, the hospitality is top-notch. That’s one of the main things El Chato is known for.”
When I spoke with him, the octogenarian was spry, rocking a cowboy hat and boots, jeans and a pressed button-up shirt.
“I’m open seven days a week, beginning at 6 a.m. and closing at 8 p.m.,” he said before walking over to a pair of visitors and asking them to stand. He positioned himself behind one of the men and began to massage his stomach to “aid him in his digestion and help with his hangover,” then repeated the process for the other. This, getting to speak with the local legend, is part of the bar’s appeal. He’s happy to walk you around his bar and tell you the stories behind the images on the wall, a collection depicting Mexican revolutionaries and cowboys, including one portrait of him. “If people come and don’t see him, they don’t stay,” says Villalobos Vazquez.
El Chato hopes that one of his grandchildren or great-grandchildren will take an interest and run the bar when he’s gone. But he’s not really thinking that far ahead. He’s a charro after all, and he has a job to do. As long as customers keep showing up, he’ll continue to serve them, and that’s where his attention is for now.
“It’s a really cool experience to meet a living legend who created an iconic beverage for Mexico,” says Nuñez, who encourages people to make the trek to experience El Chato’s bar, and the Chatazo, themselves. “You’ll never understand tequila if you don’t understand where it comes from, the people who make it and the culture around it.”
Elizabeth Quan Kiu V. contributed to this story.
