I’m offered my first tequila cocktail before the train has even departed from Guadalajara station. It’s the first of many drinks served on the Jose Cuervo Express to Tequila, the colonial town that gave its name to Mexico’s national beverage.

The train, a mock-19th-century-railcar, comes to life and slices along the tracks. Past Guadalajara’s gridlocked main avenues and featureless outer districts, we enter greener terrains that slide by soothingly.

Distant cattle graze in wide, beige fields, and all sorts of alien contraptions loom into view: vast water tanks that look like spaceships, maize harvesters from Mars and other spindly structures that have landed from beyond.