For the past seven years, instructors have crossed the country offering driver-education seminars and recruiting conscientious drivers to compete in the Brandhouse Number-One Taxi Driver competition, sponsored by the South African distributor for liquor brands including Jose Cuervo tequila and Smirnoff vodka.
At 9.3 million cases a year in the U.S., tequila is well behind vodka at 45.9 million and rum at 21.8 million, but it's gaining on those two other spirits.
Unlike vodka, which can be made in a day anywhere in the world, tequila has acquired the mystique of its geography and its two-and-a-half-century-old traditions.