Hi, we're Seth and Zac Longaker. We're brothers, and we never set out to start a tequila brand.
We've spent most of our adult lives building things together. In 1997, we started Oddball, a shoe company for guys with big feet, mostly because we couldn't find shoes that fit. Almost 30 years later, we still run it today.
Our connection to Mexico goes back even further, to our college days in San Diego. We spent a lot of time south of the border and fell in love with the people, the food, the culture and, yes, the tequila.
Years later, Oddball somehow played a part in bringing us back.
We were in León, Guanajuato working on a new footwear project and, over several trips, became good friends with the family helping us bring it to life. They knew how much we loved Mexico and tequila and kept joking that when we sold the shoes, the box should have a little compartment inside for a mini bottle of tequila.
It was just an offhand comment, but it got us thinking.
They eventually arranged for us to meet a friend of their uncle's, Juan Francisco Collado, who had his own tequila brand. We figured we'd meet, talk tequila for a bit and see where it went.
That conversation lasted three hours.
Juan Francisco became a friend and a mentor, and not long after, he took us on a journey into Los Altos de Jalisco.
The first stop was Hacienda El Olvido, a place he had a personal connection to but hadn't visited in years. Earlier in his life, Juan Francisco had worked with the López family and spent time helping around the distillery.
In a way, he was rediscovering it right alongside us.
That’s where we met the López family. They’d been growing agave and making tequila there for decades, and for reasons we still feel lucky about, they let us in. We got to see how it was really done and understand the people and place behind it.
We kept going back. We were fascinated by what we’d found, but we also wanted to know if this was just a pipe dream or something we could actually bring to life.
Over time, the connection became friendship, the friendship became trust, and eventually Acre Largo became real.
That was 2018.
We’d been building things together for almost 30 years and weren’t looking for something new. But an offhand comment, some good people, a little luck and a lot of serendipity somehow led us here.
What we found has brought us more joy than we ever expected. Acre Largo is our way of sharing it. The tequila, of course, but also the people, the place, the friendships and the adventure that came with it.
If you’re the kind of person who believes some of the best things in life are the ones you never planned for, we think you’ll like it here.
