Tucson may be a long way from the cornfields of central Illinois, but Todd Hanley adapted quickly to desert life when he moved to Arizona in 2001. So much so, in fact, that he’s created an homage, of sorts, to one of the state’s most bountiful and revered natural resources: the agave plant.

Hanley’s roots in Tucson run deep. He moved to the Old Pueblo in 2003 and went on to marry his wife Rebecca, the eldest daughter of Richard and Shana Oseran, owners of the historic Hotel Congress. Hanley ran the hotel for four-plus years before helping open Maynards Market and Kitchen. Today, he continues to serve as an advisor to both downtown Tucson destinations.

“There wasn’t much going on downtown back in the mid 2000s, and the Hotel Congress and our management team were trying to create opportunities,” he says. “We started with a one-day event at Hotel Congress called Tequila Fest on Cinco de Mayo in 2008, centered around tequila tastings and a bartender cocktail competition.”

Over subsequent years, the event expanded and rebranded as the Agave Heritage Festival, named after the plant used to produce mezcal.

“I wanted to push the envelope around the community and nonprofit organizations,” Hanley says. “In 2017, when we added education about the holistic elements of the agave plant, it started to gain traction with influential people, not just within the mezcal and tequila industries, but the worlds of botany and conservation, too. That’s when it really took off.”

Today, the event has grown into a four-day festival that focuses on the balance between economic and environmental sustainability, while mixing in culture, education and consumer awareness.

“While we’re having fun engaging in and drinking mezcal and tequila, and eating delicious regional foods, we’re also talking to academics, farmers and producers,” he says.

In 2024, the festival will be entering its 16th year and will be held April 18-21. It will include the customary entertainment and presentations in Tucson, with plans to expand beyond downtown into outlying community-based bars and restaurants. There’s also a new twist on the education side, with the Agave Renaissance Summit being hosted in Alamo, Sonora, to highlight the relationship between northern Mexico and southern Arizona.

“We wanted to bring the festival to an area where they’re producing mezcal,” Hanley says. “In the same way grapes and regions represent different wines, bacanora is an agave spirit produced only in Sonora, whereas tequila uses a different variety of agave and is made in southern Mexico.”

Hanley describes agave as the buffalo of the plant world because it has so many secondary uses beyond mezcal, including rope, bags, sandals, as a sweetener, and even for livestock silage. But his appreciation also has a philosophical bent.

“What sparked my interest is how agave can grow in such harsh conditions with so little water,” he says. “More than that, it represents an entire country and culture south of the border. I come from a farming family on my mom’s side, so I appreciate the hard work that goes into making a beautiful mezcal.”

The agave has also influenced the Hotel Congress itself. The Century Room is both an allusion to the hotel being more than 100 years old, as well as the agave’s “century plant” nickname.

“The branding and design of the Century Room is overtly about the agave plant in a beautiful way,” says Hanley. “After going dark in the pandemic, we morphed the Copper Hall private-event facility into Borderlands Jazz Club & Mezcal Lounge. It seemed fitting to highlight jazz because it’s a music that’s based on artistic feel, just like the nuances of mezcal production.”

In addition to ancestral small batch mezcals, the lounge features craft cocktails, regional beer, wine and small plates.

Between helping run the family business and hosting the festival, Hanley’s passion for a message of sustainability and conservation is what keeps him going. “It really boils down to my desire not to just be a restaurateur, hotelier or nightclub owner,” he says. “I wanted to create my own kind of legacy and always pushed the envelope from an entrepreneurial perspective. As that happened, I realized I’d become deeply involved in the entire symbiotic relationship of the agave plant to our culture and economy in southern Arizona.”

Looking back on how far the agave event has come in the past 15 years, Hanley is reminded of the fall harvest corn festivals he attended as a kid growing up.

“You could say I’ve been involved in plant-based festivals my entire life,” he says with a laugh. “But I think the Agave Heritage Festival is a little bit cooler.”