Mexico officially established tequila’s denomination of origin in 1974.
The designation legally linked the name “tequila” to a defined production area and to specified manufacturing rules. It helped distinguish tequila from other agave spirits and gave Mexican authorities a basis for protecting the name internationally.
The denomination originally covered parts of Jalisco and was later expanded to parts of Guanajuato, Michoacán, Nayarit, and Tamaulipas. This geographic system is important because agave spirits made elsewhere cannot normally be marketed as tequila, even when they use similar methods.
The 1974 date is sometimes confused with later technical standards and international agreements. Mexico’s official rules have been updated repeatedly, but the denomination-of-origin declaration itself dates to 1974.