Repeat after us: agaves are not cacti! But we can see where people probably got confused. Early on in the Tequila days, brands mistakenly put cacti in their imagery for their brands, to evoke the feelings of Mexico, and from there, everyone made assumptions. And although these prickly cousins have given trouble to scientists over the years attempting to get the taxonomy right, they’re in the same family, but they aren’t the same thing. Both are succulents, but agaves are more closely related to yucca and lilies.