Like its location among the Franklin Mountains in the Chihuahuan Desert, the Plaza Hotel Pioneer Park, in El Paso, is a dreamy mirage come true. Guests might feel that hazy surreality when waking up in the nineteen-story high-rise, originally constructed in 1930 and designed by late local architect Henry Trost—especially after an evening in the basement’s Agave Room. Inspired by the tasting rooms of Jalisco, the hotel’s newest attraction will store much of the Plaza’s 1,200 tequila, mezcal, sotol, bacanora, and raicilla bottles, which general manager Adrian Gonzalez believes is the largest and rarest agave-based spirits collection in the United States.
When Gonzalez came on board, a year after the property reopened in 2020 following a 29-year closure and an investment of at least $78 million from Franklin Mountain Investments CEO Paul Foster, he realized bartenders needed easier access to the eight hundred labels offered at the hotel. That list includes more-recognizable spirits, such as tequila and mezcal, as well as the increasingly popular sotol; bacanora, made in Sonora from pacifica, or yaquiana, agave plants; and raicilla, a fruity, floral spirit from the western part of Jalisco. Three years later, the Agave Room is now open for private events, and beginning in December, it will be open for tasting menu dinners and weekly spirits tastings.
Refurbished by Edgar Lopez of the local In*Situ Architecture firm, the Agave Room was previously a collection of unused offices and a janitor’s closet. Now it’s the latest rollout in the hotel’s lengthy renovation, which also includes a spa set to open in 2025. Along with the hotel’s new One Key Michelin award—the Plaza is the only property outside Austin, Dallas–Fort Worth, and the Houston area to get the designation of “a very special stay” (and is also the least expensive)—the Agave Room is another reason the restored Art Deco skyscraper stands out amid a broader hotel renaissance happening in downtown El Paso.
With custom mesquite cabinetry and a fourteen-seat table hewn from black walnut, the room is also decorated with a expressionist-like painting of flowering tunas by El Pasoan artist Patrick “Pico” Gabaldón. Stored in the subterranean room is the hotel’s most expensive bottle, Patrón en Lalique, an extra-añejo tequila, available for $10,000 or in individual shots for $800 apiece. It’s also shaken into “the world’s most expensive margarita,” which sells for $1,500 and includes a 30 percent donation to the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation. It’s available in the Agave Room and at the hotel’s Ámbar Restaurante and La Perla, the former penthouse shared by Elizabeth Taylor and Conrad “Nicky” Hilton, the son of the hotel’s original owner, Conrad Hilton. (La Perla is now El Paso’s highest rooftop bar, as well as an in-demand spot for marriage proposals in a city especially suited to sensational sunsets.) Also in the Agave Room’s collection are bottles no longer in production, such as Gran Patrón Smoky, a 50 percent blanco tequila made by roasting agave with mesquite in underground stone pits, and Corralejo 1821 Extra Añejo, a double-distilled tequila aged for three years in American oak casks previously used for bourbon.
Gonzalez, the mastermind behind the hotel’s collection, amassed knowledge about tequilas from growing up in Mexico and a spending a long career in the hospitality industry. He makes sure to stock the few brands that still craft tequila with traditional production methods, including Caballito Cerrero, run by fifteenth-generation tequileros in Guadalajara; Lalo Tequila, which prepares the spirit according to the original recipe of blue Weber agave, yeast, and water; and Tequila Ocho, a single-origin distillery that uses overripe agaves from the Golden Triangle of Los Altos de Jalisco. The Plaza Hotel is the first entity importers and distributors contact when they get rare bottles or access to new brands, Gonzalez says: “We’re their best customer.”
Unavoidable in a discussion about collecting tequila bottles is the exponential growth of companies—and celebrities—investing in the spirit. When Gonzalez started drinking tequila, in the late 1960s, long before he reached the legal drinking age, there were about fifty brands of tequila being produced in Jalisco, he estimates. Now, he says, he can’t keep up, calculating nearly three thousand brands being made by two hundred families in Mexico’s five authorized tequila regions: Jalisco, Guanajuato, Michoacan, Nayarit, and Tamaulipas.
One possible reason for tequila’s popularity is the spread of Mexican restaurants—one in ten restaurants now serve Mexican food in the U.S., according to recent findings from the Pew Research Center. But the spirit’s rise owes more to celebrities, Gonzalez speculates. Of all the star-owned brands, including ones by George Clooney, Kendall Jenner, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, Michael Jordan, Matthew McConaughey, and Justin Timberlake, Gonzalez considers George Strait’s Código 1530, which makes its tequila without additives, to have the best-quality offerings.
Celebrities also flock to the Plaza Hotel at Pioneer Park for luxe overnights with a view. Aside from the hotel’s former famous penthouse occupants, Khalid, Jared Leto, Ricky Martin, Chris Pine, Mike Tyson, and Mötley Crüe have all stayed since the property reopened. This summer, Benicio del Toro, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Sean Penn spent three weeks in the hotel’s eleventh-floor Landmark Suites to shoot the upcoming Paul Thomas Anderson–directed film The Battle of Baktan Cross. To evade public fawning, VIPs like them can gain access to the Agave Room from private elevators. The rest of us can look forward to December.
