“100% PURE AGAVE” melted into the glass of your favorite bottle of tequila. You catch a hint of the agave flavor as you gulp down a shot, but then expunge it with a bite into a harsh slice of lime. Perhaps in that moment, you ask yourself what agave is, but later forget when the tequila shot dissipates into your brain. Let’s take a sober moment to answer that question and explore how agave got its name.
Agave is a variety of plant native to the Americas that is related to the lily. It can grow to be a massive 8 feet when measured from the tip of one frond to another. It has long been domesticated as it was an important food staple for the pre-Colombian peoples of Mesoamerica who used it for its juices and fibers. The Taino people of today’s Caribbean islands knew the succulent as maguey, while the powerful Aztecs who spoke Nahuatl called the plant metl. How we ended up with the English name agave is another story.
Tequila, the only reason most Americans have ever heard of agave, is made from fermented sap from the heart of the agave plant which must be distilled. Rudimentary distillation reached the Americas with the arrival of Europeans, but indigenous people had been drinking fermented agave nectar long before this. Some archaeological speculation even claims that indigenous Americans were practicing simple distillation by stacking pots. Pulque, which amounts to an agave wine, was called octli by the Aztecs, but they only drank it for medicinal or ceremonial purposes (Wright 3). Your tequila shot is only the most modern rendition of an ancient American tradition that cherished the juices of the agave plant.
Yet for something so uniquely American, the native aloe has been given a very Greek name. Agave was a prominent name in Greek mythology. It had linguistic roots in the word for noble. The mythological figure Agave was the mother of the king of Thebes who famously killed her own son, King Pentheus. In her defense, she only killed her son because she was blinded by a divine madness brought upon by the worship of the god of wine, Dionysos. That means your tequila is made from a plant named after a woman who got a little too crazy off the god of wine. So how did this Greek name end up on a Mexican bottle?
Remember back to biology class. Binomial nomenclature, the system devised to name all of the living creatures on Earth with only two words: Homo sapiens, Canis lupus. The father of this system, Carolus Linnaeus, has the distinguished honor of also having named the American plant agave. In his Latin book Hortus upsaliensis, catalogued from 1742 until its publication in 1748, Agave appears for the first time in print in reference to the plant. In a rare explanatory note, Linnaeus even goes so far as to explain the reason this new category of plant had been given the name. In the footnote, he explains, “As a new class has been completed a new name can be inserted. African and Asian varieties, already known, retain their common and official names; but another must be assigned to these, among the synonyms nothing worthy occurs, but an ancient variety merits an ancient name, and therefore, I called it agave as it is an admirable plant.” (Hortus Upsaliensis) An admirable plant gets an admirable name.
The ancient Greek agauós meant admirable or noble and perhaps lent its name to the daughter of Cadmus, Agave who would later kill her son. Why this character in mythology deserved the name is another matter, but the reason American agave got it is entirely thanks to Carolus Linnaeus.
American aloe was present in Sweden, where Carolus Linnaeus lived, by 1708 at the royal palace gardens(Brenners). Linnaeus had already written about the plant prior to the 1748 publication, but only described it as American aloe. When we look at his earlier writings and even his annotations on other books he kept in his library, we can make a guess as to how the name ‘Agave’ came to his mind. In a 1740 edition of his own Systema Naturae, Linneaus has written Agave in the margins, but pointing to Yucca, another spiky plant native to the Americas. While the plants are similar, he clearly separates the two in his 1748 work. We can imagine at this time that he was still hashing out the exact classification for this New World plant.
In Sweden, there was also an older book compiled between 1689 and 1709 that described the plant the Swede would later name agave. It is an extensive botanical catalogue which, among other things, depicts agave. In the drawing of American agave the illustrator names “nequancetl” which is a combination of the Nahuatl words nequi stem and metl agave. Below this name, in nearly illegible handwriting, the word “marguavey” is written. This is most likely related to the Taino maguey which refers to the same plant. With this book penned by a countryman and limited access to actual American agave, Linnaeus must have read this same text and, like us, noticed the similarity between Marguavey and Agave.
Surely this is speculation, but Linnaeus only tells us the plant has earned this name because it is admirable. Either way, the name caught on. In a 1752 letter to Linnaeus, Otto von Munchhausen acknowledges the coinage of a new name for the plant, “Aloe s[ive] potius Agave tua vivipara.” Aloe vera or rather agave by your framework.” (Letter 22 February 1752, Uppsala to Otto von Münchhausen, Steyerberg). We even see the word in American English as early as 1765 in a Georgian newspaper which advertises, “Numbers of people from this place have gone within these eight days past to the plantation of the Hon. Nobles Jones, Esq. a few miles from town, to see an Agave plant, now in blossom there, which is said to be 27 and a half feet high, and has 33 branches, which contain a vast number of blossoms.” (Georgia Gazette, 1765) The name caught on quick and hasn’t let go since.
Next time you pick up a bottle of tequila and see the word agave inscribed into the glass, remember how strange it is. Carolus Linneaus seems to have arbitrarily assigned that name, simply because he thought the plant was noble. Perhaps he invented it as a sort of translation of some bastardized version of a native name for the plant. The fact that this name is also the name of Agave, Queen of the Maenads, the frenzied and drunken female followers of the god of wine, only adds to the confusion of this etymological tale. Next time you take that tequila shot, don’t forget Agave, and join in the drunken frenzy of appreciation that this noble plant deserves.
Georgia Gazette (published as THE GEORGIA GAZETTE.) (Savannah, Georgia)July 11, 1765
Linné Carl von. Caroli Linnaei … Hortus Upsaliensis, Exhibens Plantas Exoticas, Horto Upsaliensis Academiae a Sese Illatas, Ab Anno 1742, in Annum 1748, Additis Differentiis, Synonymis, Habitationibus, Hospitiis, Rariorumque Descriptionibus, in Gratiam Studiosae Juventutis. Vol. I. Sumtu Literis L. Salvii, 1748. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/13841#page/1/mode/1up.
Rudbeck, Olof, “Lib: VII. Alsinaceae, Boragineae, Synanthereae, Crassulaceae, Euphorbiaceae etc.”https://www.alvin-portal.org/alvin/view.jsf?pid=alvin-record%3A97015&dswid=8464”
Letter 22 February 1752, Uppsala to Otto von Münchhausen, Steyerberg, Linnaean correspondence, Uppsala universitetsbibliotek, https://www.alvin-portal.org/alvin/view.jsf?aq=%5B%5B%7B%22A_FQ%22%3A%22ALOE%22%7D%5D%5D&c=16&aqe=%5B%5D&af=%5B%5D&searchType=EXTENDED&query=ALOE&pid=alvin-record%3A234559&dswid=-1398#alvin-record%3A234559.
”Vera & accurata deliniata aloes americanae maioris mucarnato folio conspicuae : primae, qua per Sveciam, in hortis nimirum palatii Noorensis ilustrissimi et excellentissimi, comitis Dni Nicolai Gydlenstolpe”https://www.alvin-portal.org/alvin/imageViewer.jsf?dsId=ATTACHMENT-0001&pid=alvin-record%3A215909&dswid=6960 [Illustration i Sophiae Elisabeth Brenners uti åtskillige språk, tider och tilfällen författade poetiske dikter af henne sielf å nyo öfwersedde, samt med dertil hörige kopparstycken förökte [del I], Stockholm, 1713]. https://www.alvin-portal.org/alvin/imageViewer.jsf?dsId=ATTACHMENT-0001&pid=alvin-record%3A215909&dswid=6911
Wright, Amie. “‘La Bebida National’: Pulque and Mexicanidad, 1920-46.” Canadian Journal of History, vol. 44, no. 1, Spring/Summer2009 2009, pp. 1–24. EBSCOhost, doi:10.3138/cjh.44.1.1
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