Pick up almost any bottle of tequila and you will find a small cluster of letters and numbers stamped somewhere on the back label. NOM 1123. NOM 1414. CRT. To most drinkers these markings may as well be a barcode, a bit of regulatory noise between the brand name and the alcohol percentage. Read them correctly, though, and they tell you a great deal about what you are about to pour. They can also tell you a lot about what you still do not know.
After thirteen years of reporting on agave spirits, I have watched NOM numbers become one of the most overused and misunderstood tools in the drinker’s kit. Some shops treat them as gospel. Some brand reps dismiss them entirely. The truth sits between those two positions. Here is a working guide to what these codes actually mean, what they do not mean, and how to use them without fooling yourself.
The Short Version
A NOM is a four-digit number identifying the distillery that produced a given bottle of tequila. CRT refers to the Consejo Regulador del Tequila, the certification body that verifies compliance with the official tequila standard. Mezcal has its own parallel system, as do bacanora and raicilla. None of these marks certify quality. They certify authenticity and compliance. That distinction is where most consumer confusion begins.
What NOM Actually Stands For
NOM is short for Norma Oficial Mexicana, which translates roughly as Official Mexican Standard. It is the term Mexico uses for any federally mandated technical regulation, and it applies to everything from seatbelt specifications to the chemistry of bottled water. Several of these standards govern agave spirits.
For tequila, the governing standard is NOM-006-SCFI-2012, titled Alcoholic Beverages, Tequila, Specifications. It dictates what tequila is, where it can be made, which agave can be used, what ranges of ABV are permitted, how it must be labeled, and much more. Every bottle of tequila sold legally anywhere in the world must comply with it.
For mezcal, the equivalent is NOM-070-SCFI-2016, which took effect in 2017 and replaced the original 1994 norm. Bacanora is governed by NOM-168-SCFI-2004. Sotol has its own standard, NOM-159-SCFI-2004, though sotol is technically not an agave spirit because it comes from Dasylirion, a different plant entirely. Raicilla received Denomination of Origin status in 2019 and is working through its own regulatory framework.
So when you see NOM on a tequila label followed by four digits, those two elements are doing separate jobs. The word NOM tells you the bottle was produced under the Mexican standard. The number tells you which specific distillery did the producing.
The Four-Digit Number: A Distillery Fingerprint
Every tequila distillery registered with the Mexican government receives a unique four-digit identifier. The Consejo Regulador del Tequila assigns this number, tracks it, and requires it to appear on every bottle. It is tied to a single legal entity operating at a single physical location. If you see NOM 1123 on a bottle of Ocho and NOM 1123 on a bottle of Tapatío, that is not a coincidence. Both brands are produced at La Alteña in Arandas, Jalisco.
This is the feature that makes NOM numbers genuinely useful to consumers. Brands come and go. Marketing stories get invented and reinvented. Celebrities attach themselves to juice they had nothing to do with creating. The NOM, though, points to the actual place where the agave was cooked, fermented, distilled, and in most cases bottled. Multiple brands sharing a NOM means they came out of the same facility, often under the same master distiller, sometimes using identical recipes with different labels slapped on top.
That information used to be nearly impossible to obtain as a consumer. Today, independent resources like Tequila Matchmaker maintain searchable databases that let you type in a NOM and see every brand produced at that distillery, along with tasting notes and additive testing results. It is the single most valuable research tool in the category.
What CRT Is and What It Is Not
The Consejo Regulador del Tequila, founded in 1994, is a private nonprofit organization accredited by the Mexican government to certify tequila production. It is not a government agency. It is not a marketing board, though it does some marketing work. It is, to borrow an imperfect comparison, something like the body that certifies organic food in the United States, except with exclusive authority and a much narrower remit.
When you see the letters CRT on a label, it means the council has verified that the product meets NOM-006 requirements. The CRT inspects distilleries, monitors agave deliveries, takes samples, runs laboratory analyses, seals aging barrels, and issues the export certificates required for every shipment leaving Mexico. The idea that a bottle could reach the United States calling itself tequila without passing through this system is, for legally imported product, not really possible.
This is genuinely valuable. Before the CRT existed, counterfeit tequila was a real problem, and what qualified as tequila varied depending on who was being asked. The council brought structure. It also brought consistency of definition, which matters for a product whose value rests partly on its Denomination of Origin.
What CRT certification does not mean is that the tequila inside the bottle is good. The council certifies compliance, not craftsmanship. A mass-produced diffuser tequila from a factory that processes hundreds of thousands of liters per month and a slow-cooked, tahona-crushed tequila from a small family distillery will both carry the CRT mark. Both are legitimately tequila. Anyone who tells you CRT certification is a quality stamp is either misinformed or selling something.
The Limits of What a NOM Can Tell You
Here is where the category gets honest. A NOM number tells you where a tequila was produced. It does not tell you who actually distilled it. It does not tell you whether additives were used. It does not tell you which lot or batch you have. And it absolutely does not tell you anything about quality.
Contract distilling is common in tequila. A single distillery can produce fifty or more brands, each with its own marketing story, each pointing to the same NOM. Some of those brands are hands-on projects where the brand owner is genuinely involved in recipe development, agave sourcing, and production decisions. Others are label-only arrangements where someone with capital paid for a stock recipe and a custom bottle. The NOM looks identical on both.
There is also the issue of brand trading, where bulk tequila produced at one facility can be transferred to another before bottling. This is less common at the premium end but it happens, and the regulations around it are looser than many consumers assume.
Then there is the additive question. Under current rules, a tequila can be labeled 100 percent agave and still contain up to 1 percent additives by volume, including glycerin, caramel color, oak extract, and sweeteners like jarabe. None of this appears on the label. None of it disqualifies a tequila from CRT certification. If you want to know whether your favorite bottle is additive-free, the NOM will not tell you. You need independent testing resources or a producer who has earned verified additive-free status through a separate program.
Reading a Label in Practice
Let me walk through what a careful look at a tequila back label should cover. The four-digit NOM tells you the distillery. Look it up. Find out what else is made there and whether the operation is one you trust. A distillery producing eight brands run by multi-generational families is a different proposition than one churning out forty private labels for cruise lines and nightclubs.
The CRT mark, or the phrase Hecho en Mexico, confirms the bottle is actually tequila and not an agave-flavored spirit dressed up to look like one. Beware of products sold in the United States that omit these markings. Agave spirits and agave distillates are not tequila, whatever they may imply visually.
Look for the phrase 100% de agave or 100% puro de agave. Without that language, you are holding a mixto, which by law only needs to derive 51 percent of its fermentable sugars from blue agave. The remaining 49 percent is typically cane or corn sugar. Mixtos have their place, and a few are genuinely well made, but the premium conversation in tequila happens at the 100 percent agave tier.
Check the category, which will read blanco, reposado, anejo, extra anejo, or cristalino. These are aging designations with specific legal definitions under NOM-006. Check the lot or batch number, which by regulation must appear on every bottle. And check the bottler and producer address, which is sometimes the same as the distillery and sometimes not.
Mezcal’s Parallel System
Mezcal’s regulatory landscape looks similar on the surface and differs in ways that matter once you scratch it. The Consejo Regulador del Mezcal, often abbreviated CRM, is the largest certifier. Its official legal name is still COMERCAM, short for Consejo Mexicano Regulador de la Calidad del Mezcal. The CRM was established in the late 1990s and served as the sole certifier for roughly two decades.
That changed in recent years. After a long legal and political process, other certification bodies have been approved to operate alongside the CRM, and today five certifiers are active in mezcal. This is a significant departure from the tequila model, where the CRT holds exclusive authority.
NOM-070-SCFI-2016 created three categories of mezcal. Ancestral mezcal requires traditional pit ovens, crushing by mallet or tahona, fermentation in natural vessels such as wooden tanks or animal hides, and distillation in wood-fired clay pot stills. Artisanal mezcal allows slightly more flexibility, permitting copper pot distillation and mechanical crushers, while still requiring pit or above-ground masonry cooking. The third category, labeled simply mezcal, permits industrial methods including autoclaves and diffusers.
The holographic sticker you see on certified mezcal bottles is serialized. Every batch must be approved and numbered, and that number traces back to a specific producer and production run. For a category that prizes transparency and producer attribution, this is a meaningful layer of accountability, even with the ongoing debates about how the system is administered.
Bacanora, Raicilla, and Sotol
Bacanora received its Denomination of Origin in 2000 and its governing NOM in 2005. Production is restricted to thirty-five municipalities in the state of Sonora. Only agave angustifolia, known locally as pacifica or yaquiana, can be used. The regulatory body is the Consejo Sonorense Promotor de la Regulacion del Bacanora, formed in 2006. Bacanora was illegal until 1992, which is one reason the regulatory infrastructure is younger and thinner than tequila’s.
Raicilla was granted Denomination of Origin status in 2019, making it the most recent addition to the protected agave spirits family. The Consejo Mexicano Promotor de la Raicilla has been building out the regulatory framework since then. Production is limited to specific regions of Jalisco and Nayarit, and approved agave varieties include maximiliana, inaequidens, rhodacantha, and angustifolia, among others. The NOM process for raicilla has been contentious, with producers divided over how strictly to enforce traditional methods.
Sotol deserves a note because it frequently gets swept into agave conversations. It is made from Dasylirion, the desert spoon plant, which is related to agave but is not agave. Sotol has a Denomination of Origin covering Chihuahua, Durango, and Coahuila, and it is governed by NOM-159-SCFI-2004. If you see a spirit labeled sotol, expect a plant identifier, a production region, and a governing norm distinct from anything in the agave family proper.
How to Actually Use This Information
Start with the NOM. Look it up. If a distillery produces three thoughtful brands, that is a very different signal than one producing forty. Neither is automatically disqualifying, but volume and brand count are useful context for interpreting what you are holding.
Cross-reference with independent additive testing if that matters to you. A growing number of drinkers care about whether their 100 percent agave tequila is actually free of undisclosed additions. The regulations do not require that disclosure, so the work of finding out has fallen to private initiatives and third-party verifiers.
Treat CRT and CRM certification as a baseline, not a badge of honor. Every legitimate bottle will carry one. The presence of the mark is expected. What should interest you is what happens above that baseline. Who is the producer? What are their practices? What is their relationship to the agave, the land, and the people doing the work? The regulatory system cannot answer those questions for you. It was never designed to.
The markings on the back label are a starting point. Used well, they open a door to real information about what is in the bottle and who made it. Used poorly, they become a shortcut to false confidence. After more than a decade of looking at these labels, my advice is to treat them the same way you would treat the nutrition facts on a food package. Necessary. Informative. And only the beginning of what you actually need to know.