The first recorded exports of the liquor were to the USA in 1873, when three barrels of Jose Cuervo were sent to El Paso, Texas, and three barrels of Sauza were sent to New Mexico. During the Prohibition era in the USA between 1919 and 1933, huge quantities of tequila were smuggled into the USA from Mexico. It is somewhere in this era that the first margarita cocktail was made. There is no definitive answer as to how the drink came to be, but legends about its origin are many . In 1976, the rights to the name tequila were established as the intellectual property of the Mexican government.
Laws surrounding production methods for tequila are quite strict.
The most important alcoholic drink of early American Indians was pulque, from the fermented sap of an agave plant. Later, the Aztecs discovered pulque, but at first its consumption was confined to religious ceremonies. Social drinking was prohibited, and drunkenness was punishable by death. Pulque was also served to the victims of human sacrifices, before priests ripped out their hearts using knives made from shards of volcanic glass. Tequila is graded according to the level of agave it contains and the length of aging.