Mezcal

• 1. Introduction

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  Mezcal comes with a proverb from Oaxaca that treats it as the answer to every situation. In English it runs: "For everything bad, mezcal, and for everything good, as well; and if there is no remedy, liter and a half." The spirit behind the saying is distilled from agave, the spiky desert plant of the Americas.

  Mescaline is the first word many newcomers think of when they hear the name, yet mezcal contains no mescaline and no psychedelic substances of any kind. What it does carry is a strong smoky flavor. The route that produced it is odd. A Mexican spirit owes its basic equipment to sailors and settlers who came from the Philippines. Colonial officials tried to stamp out the drinks that came before it, and modern regulators now argue over who may print the word on a label. How did all of that happen, and what does it cost the land that grows the plant?

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• 2. The Agave Behind It

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  The Nahuatl word mexcalli means baked agave. It joins metl, the word for agave, with ixca, meaning to bake. The spelling mescal is a common variant.

  Agaves, also called magueys, are native to the Americas and now grow worldwide as ornamental plants. The genus sits in the Agavoideae subfamily of the Asparagaceae family and holds more than 120 species. Mezcal can be made from over 30 of those species, varieties and subvarieties. Tequila, by contrast, is made only from blue agave.

  Between seven and fifteen years must pass before a mezcal agave matures, depending on the species and on whether it grows wild or cultivated. A mature plant has very large, thick leaves tipped with points. At its center it forms the piña, the heart from which juice is taken. Agave fields are a common sight in the semi-desert of Oaxaca state.

  Seven kinds stand out, though no complete list exists. The rules allow any agave that is not the main ingredient of another protected spirit. Espadín, whose name means smallsword, is the predominant agave in Oaxaca. Its botanical name is Agave angustifolia var. espadín. Arroqueño, cirial, barril, mexicano and cincoañero follow in importance, and mexicano also goes by the name dobadaan. Tobalá is the most famous wild agave. Madrecuixe, tepeztate, jabalí and bicuixe are other names a drinker may meet. The label silvestre, meaning wild, only says the plants were foraged rather than farmed. It does not name a separate variety.

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• 3. Stills From Manila

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  From 1565 to 1815, Spanish galleons shuttled between Mexico and the Philippines, and distilling knowledge traveled with the crews. Agave drinks were already old in Mexico. Pulque, a fermented drink from agave sap, predates the colonial era. Distilling the juice of the agave heart, however, arrived only after Filipino sailors and migrants brought their own still design. Researchers support this account with ethnohistoric, botanical, archaeological and place-name evidence. Mezcal, in this telling, merges pre-Columbian fermentation traditions with Asian distillation techniques.

  The Filipino-type still descends from Mongolian and East Asian designs. It differs sharply from the European alembic, which descends from Arabic and Middle Eastern stills. It was cheap, easy to build and less efficient. A typical one used a hollowed-out log, often from the parota tree, fitted with two pans of copper or iron. Cold water kept filling the upper pan, which acted as the condenser. The lower pan held the fermented juice over a furnace and served as the boiler. The distillate ran off into an internal container set on a platform between the pans, or into a spoon-shaped collector and gutter. That gutter could be made of wood, a rolled agave leaf or carrizo cane, which was originally bamboo in the Philippines.

  Earthenware jars and bowls, bound wooden staves or metal cylinders sometimes replaced the log and pans. The olla de barro, meaning clay pot, builds a shaped clay vessel into the furnace as the boiler and needs only one pan, the condenser. Other versions carry the names of the peoples who use them, including the Tarascan, Zapoteco, Nahua, Bolaños and Huichol stills. The Huichol still is used for sotol, not mezcal. Producers of mezcal and tequila in Jalisco and Michoacán still call the design the destilador Filipino.

  Filipino settlers on the coasts of Guerrero and Colima first used the stills to make vino de coco from their coconut plantations. Vino de coco is a coconut liquor, also called lambanog. An estimated 75,000 Filipinos settled in western Mexico over the centuries of the galleon trade. They intermarried with indigenous and mixed-race families and passed the still to local communities, who turned it on fermented agave. The first historical record of mezcal production comes from southern Jalisco and uses methods derived from Colima's coconut liquor. In Colima, fermented agave awaiting distillation is still called tuba, a term borrowed from the tubâ of the coconut trade. The Huichol people use the same word for fermented sotol juice.

  The Spanish later introduced the alembic still for sugarcane, and mezcal makers adopted it too. Most modern mass-produced mezcal is distilled in alembics. The older design spread along trade routes to Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Michoacán and Sonora, with modified versions reported in parts of the southern United States. Some of the oldest distilleries, called tabernas or viñatas, still run Filipino-type stills, such as the Macario Partida distilleries in Zapotitlán de Vadillo, Jalisco.

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• 4. Outlawed And Hidden

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  By the early 1600s, the Spanish colonial government and the Real Audiencia in Spain had banned vino de coco and ordered the coconut plantations of Colima destroyed. The reason was commercial. The coconut liquor competed with spirits imported from Spain. The same motive explains why the Spanish never introduced distillation to Mexico themselves. The order was never fully obeyed. Even so, the ban pushed mezcal forward, because producers expanded and commercialized it to supply local demand for cheap liquor.

  The earliest mention of distilled agave spirits in colonial records dates to 1619. The Spanish cleric Domingo Lázaro de Arregui wrote that indigenous people in the coastal Sierra de Nayarit were distilling "mexcales". He described them as made by distilling the fermented juice of roasted agave leaf bases. By 1638, the governor of Nueva Galicia was regulating the sale of mezcal. A ban followed soon after, yet the illicit trade carried on. Records from 1643 show mezcal and vino de coco both on sale in Guadalajara.

  In the early 1700s, production left the coastal river basins of the Río Grande de Santiago for inland ravines. The move dodged the ban on indigenous spirits and put distillers near larger numbers of wild agave. The plants in use widened to highland cultivars of Agave angustifolia, plus Agave rhodacantha in Jalisco and Agave hookeri in Michoacán. By the mid-1700s vino de coco had vanished entirely, because the ban had destroyed the coconut plantations. Mezcal outlasted it because it came from abundant wild agaves that the Spanish could not eradicate.

  Hiding places grew more remote. Distillers worked in the foothills of the Volcán de Colima, in the ravines of the Colima Valley and in the Chamila Valley. In the highlands of Jalisco, the first clandestine distilleries appeared in the valleys of Amatitán, Tequila, Magdalena and El Arenal. The mezcal made there from blue agave later became tequila.

  The Filipino-type still suited a life on the run. Small and easy to take apart, it could be moved ahead of colonial authorities. Numerous well-like ancient graves cut into the rock of the region were reused as fermentation basins. Because the still was so small, a distiller could make spirit from a handful of plants or even a single one. That pushed makers to keep choosing and vegetatively propagating the wild plants with the best qualities. The result, over time, was a set of domesticated agave cultivars.

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• 5. A Disputed Prehistory

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  Some authors argue that distillation in Mexico is far older than the galleons. Their evidence is a set of double or triple-chambered clay vessels from the Capacha culture, known in Spanish as bules and dated to about 1500 to 1000 BCE. The proposal reads them as tiny stills for making small quantities of agave spirit for elites. In the imagined setup, a bowl of cold water capped the vessel and a very small cup inside caught the distillate. Modern replicas built this way have produced small amounts of spirit with an alcohol content as high as 35%.

  If that reading were right, the Filipino-type stills would merely have expanded an existing practice with new techniques. The physical evidence does not back it up. In 2019, examination and molecular testing of ancient Capacha bules found none of the macroscopic botanical remains, such as fibers, that agave would leave. They also found no chemical biomarkers for agave or for any other sugar-rich material that could be distilled, such as fruit, cactus juice, honey or corn. No cups or bowls were ever recovered in place with the vessels, and none show signs of having been set over a fire. The archaeological case therefore remains inconclusive. Every bule turned up with tombs and burial sites, and none turned up in working sites.

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• 6. From Pit To Bottle

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  A single mezcal agave can weigh 40 kg, and the work starts by cutting away its leaves and roots to free the piña. Producers then cook the hearts for about three days, often in pit ovens. A pit oven is an earthen mound built over a pit of hot rocks. This underground roasting gives mezcal its intense smoky flavor. The cooked hearts are crushed and mashed, traditionally under a stone wheel turned by a horse. The mash then ferments in large vats or barrels with water added.

  The resulting liquid is collected and distilled in clay or copper pots, which further shape the flavor. Mezcal is distilled twice, as tequila is. The first pass is called ordinario and comes out around 75 proof, or 37.5% alcohol by volume. A second pass raises the strength, and finished mezcal can reach 55%. Unaged mezcal is called joven, meaning young. Aged mezcal rests in barrels for anywhere from one month to four years, and some bottles sit as long as 12 years.

  Traditional makers work in small production houses called fábricas or palenques. A single village can hold dozens, each using methods handed down through generations. Some use techniques unchanged for 200 years. That separates mezcal from tequila, which is now mostly made industrially.

  Names such as de gusano, tobalá, pechuga, blanco, minero, cedrón, de alacrán and crema de café show how varied the spirit can be. Variety comes from the species of agave, the fruits and herbs added during fermentation and the way it is distilled. The pechuga style is distilled with a chicken breast. Other recipes flavor the mash with cinnamon, pineapple slices, plátanos manzanos or sugar. Most mezcal, though, is left untouched so that the agave itself comes through.

  In the 1940s or 1950s, some producers began dropping a gusano de maguey into bottles during bottling. The "worm" is actually the larva of a moth, Comadia redtenbacheri. Not every bottle has one. Stories about the reason conflict. Some call it a marketing ploy, others say it proved the spirit was fit to drink, and others say it adds flavor. Scorpions and snakes are similar additions.

  In Mexico, mezcal is usually drunk straight. A common companion is slices of orange, lemon or lime dusted with sal de gusano, or worm salt. It is a blend of ground fried larvae, ground chili peppers and salt. Abroad the habit is changing. In the United States, Europe and Japan, craft cocktail menus increasingly feature mezcal for its mix of smoky and vegetal notes. Bartenders swap it in for a more traditional spirit in drinks like the mezcal old fashioned and the mezcal Negroni.

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• 7. Who Owns The Name

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  Since 1994, mezcal has been recognized internationally as an Appellation of Origin. A Geographical Indication followed, originally limited to the states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, Durango, San Luis Potosí, Puebla and Zacatecas. Makers of similar spirits in Jalisco, Guanajuato, Michoacán and Tamaulipas were left outside the original designation. In Mexico, people have traditionally used mezcal as a general word for all agave spirits, and many still do, whether or not a bottle is certified.

  Inside the country, the rules come from the Norma Oficial Mexicana, first issued as NOM-070-SCFI-1994. The industry body Consejo Mexicano Regulador de la Calidad del Mezcal, known as COMERCAM, oversees them. The regulation became law in 2003, and certification began in 2005.

  The rules sort mezcal into three categories. Plain mezcal covers spirit made with high-efficiency modern methods, including autoclaves, diffusers and column stills of stainless steel or copper. Critics sometimes call it industrial mezcal. Artisanal mezcal bans autoclaves, diffusers and column stills. Its agave hearts must be cooked in pit hearths or clay or brick ovens, and milled with mallets, stone mills or mechanical mills. Fermentation takes place in animal skins, pits, or tanks of stone, clay or wood. Most artisanal producers use copper or stainless steel alembic stills. This category covers the vast majority of certified mezcal.

  Ancestral mezcal is the strictest tier. It requires pit-cooked hearts crushed by mallets or stone mills, the same traditional fermentation vessels and distillation only in Filipino-type stills of clay or wood. Stainless steel and modern equipment are forbidden. The artisanal and ancestral tiers are preferred because wood and clay add and absorb flavors during distillation. Copper is favored for metal parts because it strips out unwanted sulfur flavors and adds none of its own.

  A second layer of six classes describes age and additions. Blanco or joven is unaged and unadulterated, and most mezcal falls here. Madurado en vidrio, matured in glass, is stored for a year or more, traditionally buried underground or kept where temperature, light and humidity barely change. Reposado, meaning rested, spends two months to a year in wood. Añejo, meaning aged, spends more than a year in a wooden vessel under 1000 L. Abocado, meaning easy to drink, is flavored or infused, and the rules permit maguey worms, damiana, lime, orange, mango and honey. Destilado con, or distilled with, adds fruit, meat or herbs to the second or third distillation, a traditional practice.

  The system has plenty of critics. Small artisanal producers say certification costs too much. Traditional makers outside the chosen states feel shut out. Others object to the idea that a state should own the word mezcal. Uncertified producers may not use the term, so some of them and their importers label bottles destilados de agave or agave spirits, a category now recognized by the United States TTB. In Canada, anything sold as mezcal must be made in Mexico under the stated guidelines, though Canadian law lets local firms bottle and resell imported mezcal after adjusting its strength with distilled or purified water.

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• 8. Oaxaca And The Cost

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  Oaxaca produces 90% of Mexico's mezcal and holds 570 of the country's 625 production facilities. Some in-demand bottles come from Guerrero. Tamaulipas has authorized 11 municipalities to make authentic mezcal, using agave Americano, agave verde or maguey de la Sierra, which grow natively there. Nationwide, about 330,000 hectares of agave for mezcal belong to 9,000 producers. They turn out over 6 million liters a year under more than 150 brand names, and the industry supports about 29,000 jobs directly and indirectly. In 2019, Mexico produced 7.1 million liters.

  In 2008, certified production topped 2 million liters, and 434,000 liters were exported, earning 21 million dollars. Mezcal is now sold in 27 countries on three continents, and the United States and Japan import the most. Government agencies help smaller producers obtain the equipment and techniques to raise quantity and quality for export. In the United States, entrepreneurs have partnered with Mexican producers, pitching the handcrafted quality and the Oaxacan culture tied to the drink.

  At home, Oaxaca de Juárez hosts a yearly International Mezcal Festival sponsored by the state. It began in 1997 to accompany the Guelaguetza festival. Locals and tourists can sample and buy mezcals from Oaxaca and from states such as Guerrero, Guanajuato and Zacatecas. In 2009 the festival drew over 50,000 visitors and brought in 4 million pesos.

  Local deputy Elena Cuevas Hernández warns that Oaxaca's 90% share is a serious environmental threat. She notes that each liter of mezcal takes 10 liters of water and 7 kg of firewood. Water irrigates the plants and cools the distilled product, and wood fuels the baking. Some communities already control or prohibit firewood cutting. She also warns about pollution from rotting stalks left in the fields, from waste with a low pH of 3 or 4, and from methane. Low pay for producers is another problem. In 2021, the San Francisco-based neozapatista outlet Radio Zapatista published an article on the damage that mass production does to the environment and cultures of the Mixteca Region.

  On the 29th of September 2024, the CBS program 60 Minutes aired a segment called "The Mezcaleros" about the tradition of mezcal in Oaxaca.

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