Enamored with the county, Cenobio settled in Tequila and got a job working at the distillery of José Antonio Gómez Cuervo.
[5] Sauza was successful enough that three years later, on September 1, 1873 he purchased the La Antigua Cruz (The Old Cross) distillery (the oldest registered tequila distillery, founded in 1805 by José Maria Castañeda) from Don Felix Lopez for 5,000 pesos and renamed it La Perseverancia (Perseverance).
[7] In 1873 Sauza was the first to export tequila to the United States when he crossed through the border at El Paso del Norte (Northern Pass) carrying three casks and six jugs of his mezcal-tequila wine.
Cenobio planted more than 2 million agave and started producing about 800 casks of tequila a year at La Hacienda.
He purchased and sold thirteen more distilleries and numerous fields of agave, always working at least three at a time in order to remain the leader in tequila production and sales.