TEQUILA VS. RAICILLA, THE MENU!

Thank you so much for joining for Saturday’s tasting! Our event, Tequila vs. Raicilla, featured six varied spirits from the Mexican state of Jalisco and one mezcal from Oaxaca. Here’s what we tried. Feel free to email hello@mezcal.nyc with any questions!

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1. Cascahuin Plata, Rosales family, El Arenal, Jalisco. Blue Weber agave (Agave tequiliana). Brick oven, milled with mechanical roller mills, fermented in steel with bagasso (agave fibers), distilled in copper to proof without dilution. 48%.

A high-proof offering from the tradition-minded Rosales family, which along with a couple of other brands like Fortaleza and Caballito Cerrero is arguably one of the standard-bearers for small-batch tequila. A few notable things here. The first is the use of the brick oven for roasting the agave hearts, a practice that has largely been abandoned by more industrial producers. The fact that agave fibers (bagasso) are included in the fermentation is also fairly unusual for tequila — although it is common for mezcal — and affects the chemistry and probably flavor of the fermentation. Lastly, the fact that this is not diluted with water accounts for some of the richness and intensity of flavor.

2. Nuestra Soledad Zoquitlan, Jose Parada Valera, Santa Maria Zoquitlan, Oaxaca. Espadin (Agave angustifolia). Earthen pit oven, crushed with tahona, fermented in wood, copper distilled. 2018. 46%.

A very solid Oaxacan mezcal from the Casa Cortes brand Nuestra Soledad, in this case made by Jose Parada of Zoquitlan! Mainly included in this tasting to offer some context for (and a counterpoint to) the various spirits from Jalisco, but a delicious and good-value spirit in its own right. The use of the agave variety known as espadin — a widely and easily cultivated, relatively quick-maturing, sugar-rich subvariety of the species Agave angustifolia — is very common for mezcals in general. A vast number of differences including climate, water source, wood source for the pit oven, ambient microbes involved in the spontaneous fermentation of the agave-water mix, and distillation practices account for flavors here that are very different from most of the other spirits in the tasting. (While we are on the topic of the role of spontaneous fermentation in mezcal, it’s worth noting that as far as I know, both Cascahuin and Fortaleza, as well as perhaps every existing tequila producer, add yeast cultures to initiate fermentation, an important point of divergence from traditional mezcal practices.)

3. Cascahuin Aniversario, Rosales family, El Arenal, Jalisco. Blue Weber agave. Earthen pit oven, crushed with tahona (millstone). 225 liters. 46%.

The rarest tequila I’ll ever own! Maybe. A very limited batch from the Rosales family, made to celebrate what would have been the hundredth birthday of the distillery’s founder. It’s done in a style more akin to a very old/historical tequila or a present-day mezcal. By that, I’m referring in particular to the use of wood-fired hot rocks in an earthen pit oven to roast the agave, giving this a flavor profile more akin to mezcal than most tequilas. (The use of a millstone to crush the roasted agave hearts, instead of a mechanical mill or a more industrial system that bypasses the roasting entirely, is also atypical and mezcal-like.)

4. Fortaleza Winter Blend 2019 reposado, Sauza family, Tequila, Jalisco. Blue Weber agave. Brick oven, crushed with tahona, fermented and distilled without bagasso, aged in American whiskey barrels and new French oak. 45.7%.

A special release from the Sauza family’s (yes, that Sauza family) rehabilitated small, traditional distillery. In this case, it’s an example of the barrel-aged style of tequila known as reposado, in which the spirit is aged for a moderate duration (versus the longer-añejo, which tends to be darker in color). The use of new French oak here as part of the aging is unusual. Aside from that, it’s worth noting that Fortaleza’s use of large wooden fermentation vats and old copper stills is super cool. There are also a couple of detail-oriented process differences here relative to Cascahuin — for example, the fact that the distillery uses a tahona (millstone) to mill the baked agaves for all of its tequilas. Additionally, it ferments the juice of the roasted agaves (mixed with water) after separating the juice from the agave fibers and waste matter, while Cascahuin ferments with the fibers.

5. La Venenosa Sierra Volcanes, Arturo Campos, Tuxpan, Jalisco. Cenizo (Agave angustifolia). Earthen pit oven, rock pit fermentation, distilled in clay pots. May 2019, bottle 201 of 350. 47.7%. 

Rock pit fermentation! Well, there’s more to say about this spirit, but let’s start with that. Unlike everything except perhaps a couple of other spirits that are commercially available in the U.S., this Venenosa bottling is made from roasted, mashed agaves that are spontaneously fermented with water in rock pits — a practice that repeats part of what may be the earliest non-European distillation techniques in Mexico, the ones introduced by 16th-century trade with the Philippines. (Hedging here with “may be” to allow for the possibility of pre-Hispanic distillation.) In particular, the use of rock pits for fermentation in those early years was an important part of helping what was basically Mexican moonshining remain clandestine, because the pits could be hidden more easily than above-ground (wooden) fermenters. The use of a clay-pot still is also pretty cool and ancestral-y. It’s worth noting that in this part of Jalisco, close to Colima, this beverage would often be called “mezcal” or “vino de mezcal” (not “raicilla,” as La Venenosa labels it), or maybe “tuxca.”

6. Mezonte Candido, Candido Romero, Loma de Guadalupe, Jalisco. Ixtero amarillo (Agave rhodacantha). Earthen pit oven, hand-mashed with axes, distilled in stainless steel with ahuecada wood condenser. 2018, 40 liters, 48% 

A great, unusually tiny batch from the legendary Guadalajara nonprofit and independent bottler Mezonte, which has played a major role in carving out a reputation for these rare regional spirits from Jalisco. The use of a “filipino”-style metal and wood still is somewhat typical here, as is the use of the regionally specific agave Ixtero amarillo, which along with various subvarieties of Agave angustifolia (like the “cenizo” used in the previous spirit) is a hallmark of many traditional Jalisco spirits. Hand-mashed with axes! Yeah! I find this one particularly bright and punchy. Like the previous spirit, this is a possible “vino de mezcal” or “mezcal” from relatively close to the border with Colima, the probable heartland of many ancestral Mexican distilling practices.

7. Mezonte Japo, Hildegardo “Japo” Hoya, Cabo Corrientes, Jalisco. Ixtero amarillo. Earthen pit oven, hand-mashed with wooden mallets, distilled in copper with wood condenser. 2018, 200 liters, 46.5%.

Japo! An at-least-75-year-old (I know I said “80-something” during the tasting but this info is hard to track down) agave-spirits wizard, from a coastal town not too far from Puerto Vallarta. This puts him in the “raicilla” zone — a term that is often thrown around but, when used strictly, refers to agave spirits from this western part of Jalisco near the coast. Again, we’ve got a spirit made from Ixtero amarillo, but because of a vast array of subtle region/climate/batch/producer differences, it’s safe to say that it tastes nothing like the spirit from Candido. I won’t hold back here: I really like Japo’s spirits. If you’re in the market for a top-shelf agave spirit available in the U.S. and are ready to pay $150+ for a bottle, a bottle of Japo’s raicilla from Mezonte is a great choice, and is something you can definitely track down.