As a frequent visitor to the West Coast, New York City–based celebrity mixologist Brian Van Flandern has a good handle on what has discerning Vancouver imbibers buzzing. Reached on his cellphone in the Big Apple, he couldn’t be more effusive in his praise for a Mexican export that, in the past, got something of a bad rap.

“Tequila in Vancouver is exploding,” says Van Flandern, a brand ambassador for Don Julio. “I’m telling you, it is smoking hot.”

How hot? Well, let’s just say that celebrities like part-time Vancouverite Goldie Hawn are among its big boosters.

“I just did Kate Hudson’s birthday party at Goldie Hawn’s house, with Kate Hudson, Kurt Russell, Justin Timberlake, and Martin Short, who are huge tequila fans. For her birthday party I created a cocktail using Don Julio tequila, and then we set up a bar for them to sit and sip tequila, and to introduce it to all their friends.”

It’s not only Hollywood royalty and mega-platinum pop stars who’ve embraced the spirit that’s been getting the party started in Mexico since the 16th century. Trevor Kallies helps Vancouverites get their drink on as the bar and beverage director of Donnelly Hospitality Management, whose nightclubs, pubs, and restaurants include the Lamplighter, Library Square, and the Granville Room. Over the past couple of years, he’s noticed a sea change in the way that our city looks at tequila. It’s no longer something you dump into a blender with mass-produced margarita mix, or slam back with a salt shaker in one hand and a lime wedge in the other.

“For the average Joe, the stigma was that it has a nastiness that you have to cover up with salt and a lime,” Kallies says. “Two years ago, I would have been the same way—like, ”˜No dice. I don’t want even a single whiff of tequila.’ But now, as I’ve experienced better-quality product, moving away from the gold stuff to reposados and añejos, I’ve learned that a lot of these better products aren’t what people traditionally think of as tequila.”

All tequilas have some things in common. By Mexican law, they have to come from the blue agave plants grown and harvested in designated Mexican states, the big one being Jalisco. The agave heart—known as the piña and typically weighing 80 pounds and up—is removed eight to 12 years into the plant’s life, cut up, and then roasted in a furnace to turn starches into sugar.

Reposados see the extracted agave juice rest for between two months and a year in oak barrels, and añejos between one and three years.

For decades, B.C. Liquor Store shelves were primarily stocked with what are known as mixtos, a category that includes heavy-hitting brands like Jose Cuervo Gold. “Mixto” means only 51 percent has to come from the agave plant, with the remainder coming from other sugar sources, making the end product cheaper to produce.

What’s taking off in Vancouver is tequila that’s 100 percent agave, with premium brands including Don Julio, Corzo, Cabo Wabo, Corralejo, and El Tesoro. Jose Cuervo has also got into the action with its extra-añejos (aged a minimum of three years) Reserva de la Familia.

Forget shooting them: these boutique offerings—$100 and up at B.C. Liquor Stores—have a complexity similar to that of single-malt Scotches and high-end rums.

Vancouver-based spirits expert Bruce Mackenzie is a former B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch buyer who has watched tequila explode in the past couple of years. Aficionados, he says, look for good colour and a complex flavour (which often come from being aged in old bourbon oak casks), a pleasing bouquet (typically an almost earthy sweetness), and a smooth and mellow finish.

“When you’re seeing colour in tequila,” Mackenzie explains over a glass of Cabo Wabo reposado at the Georgia Straight, “it doesn’t come from the distillation, it comes from the cask. The inside of casks are toasted, so colours are going to leach out, as well as tastes and smells.”

He suggests that the boutique-tequila movement is a relatively recent phenomenon.

“We’re seeing powerful marketing by some really smart booze people,” Mackenzie says, adding: “Now there are lots and lots and lots of premium brands in Mexico. Fifteen years ago you’d hardly see any.”

Chalk that up to producers realizing that, even in these recessionary times, people will still pay big dollars for premium liquor, especially if it seems new and exotic.

“Twenty-five years ago, cognac was king,” Van Flandern says. “It was a spirit of emperors and kings, a prestige spirit sold in very fancy crystal decanters with its own rules. It wasn’t brandy, it was cognac. For the past 10 to 15 years we saw Scotland emulate that formula with great success. Single-malt Scotch whisky became the new affordable luxury.

“In the last five years, Mexico, the United States, and the rest of the world—specifically, great mixology cities like Vancouver—are discovering this new fruit: 100-percent-agave tequila. And, again, it’s hot.”

The Donnelly group’s Kallies will testify to that. He’s come up with a number of special tequila-based cocktails, including the Tall Reposado, which is strawberries and basil with tequila, Cointreau, and a splash of lime juice, served long over ice. As for the way tequila has taken off in Vancouver, all you need to do is check out the shelves at the Granville Room. Where there were five brands of tequila not that long ago, there are now over 15. And no, they aren’t seen as cheap go-to party starters for frat boys or girls gone wild.

“A shot glass is fine if you want to go that way,” Kallies says. “But most of the better tequilas don’t require salt and a lime, and they don’t need to be chilled or chased down by Clamato or pineapple juice. People are really starting to discover that.”