What IS Mezcal? - a history and tasting
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- čas přidán 15. 06. 2024
- Hey folks! There's a limited amount of free shipping available when you purchase any of the Corte Vetusto or Tileño mezcals. Also for the next few days, when you order ANY mezcal (or tequila) through Curiada, you'll get a free 50ml of Ancho Chile Reyes Liqueur, too - so be sure to take advantage of that! I’ll keep you guys posted with any updates.
Grab the bottles here! 👉 bit.ly/Andersbottlesonline
Today we're talking and sipping on mezcal! This spirit isn't called for in the older classic recipes, but I love working with it in numerous cocktails. With a lot of misconceptions around mezcal, things can be confusing. We'll address the confusion, cover some history, and Az will join me as we taste some new bottles against my go-to. So sit back, relax, and let the mezcal flow! Cheers!
Some sites to check out:
Tileño Mezcal: www.tilenomezcal.com/en/home/
Corte Vetusto Mezcal: www.cortevetusto.com/
Del Maguey Mezcal: delmaguey.com/
Patreon: / anderserickson
TIME STAMPS
Intro: 0:00
Mezcal and Me: 0:48
Origins: 1:28
The Process: 3:03
Tasting Lineup: 4:05
Del Maguey Vida: 5:20
Corte Vetusto: 6:34
Tileño: 7:34
Final Thoughts: 9:08
Traditional Mezcal Tasting Cups (Copitas): amzn.to/3dHjllK
My Gibraltar Rocks Glass: amzn.to/3fcDPEd
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.
Follow Me:
Instagram: / anderserickson
Twitter: / anderserickson_
Facebook: / andersericksonc
Send stuff to:
Anders Erickson
4610 N. Clark St
Suite 1051
Chicago IL, 60640
Co-produced with the lovely Azusa "Az" Inaba 🎥 🎨
Image Attribution:
Roasting Pit: Xavier Peypoch Clavé, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Agave: Jeansouleth-es, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Pile of Piñas: Ruben13montes, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Roasted Agave: Nsaum75, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Tahona: Agave, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Grab the bottles here! 👉 bit.ly/Andersbottlesonline
Hey folks! There's a limited amount of free shipping available when you purchase any of the Corte Vetusto or Tileño mezcals. Also for the next few days, when you order ANY mezcal (or tequila) through Curiada, you'll get a free 50ml of Ancho Chile Reyes Liqueur, too - so be sure to take advantage of that! I’ll keep you guys posted with any updates.
What do you think of mezcal? Do you like this format for a video? Let me know what you think. Cheers, everyone! 🍻
Love this video! Thanks Anders! Congratulations on your success to this channel. I really enjoy how you educate us on history of the different spirits, I really hope one day you will do one on Rum ! My personal favorite 🤩
Great.
Where’s your tip jar. BTC has one…look….czcams.com/video/mUZzi557s4A/video.html
Nice video and I like the format. Started watching your videos recently, I like that they are down to earth and unassuming. I have also recently gotten into Mezcals, love them. I suggest you try them in a clay copita, it enhances the experience imo.
My request is that you do a similar video on Eau De Vie, the clear distilled fruit spirit from France. Good luck.
El Mezcalito is the original.
Love Mezcal! My go to, for the money, is Sombra Joven.. very smoky but clean. Wahaka’s Joven is also very good just little more pricey. I typically love to sip on the rocks. A Oaxacan Old Fashioned is a great cocktail too
just found this channel, i'm currently studying for my law school finals, watching this very nice man explain cocktails at me is so oddly calming
Good luck on your finals!
Same! but with medschool
So you're... studying for the bar?
The other bar…
I've been an attorney for 30 years and it's still calming. 😉 Good luck with your exams.
Tequila has to be made from Blue Tequilana Weber, and in Tequila, Jalisco to be called so, Mezcal can be made from different Agaves such as Papalote, Tobalá, Espadín, and many many more Agaves, and it has a more “craft” process rather than a tequila, you can find Oaxaca and Puebla the most popular Mezcal distillers. Also mezcal has 3 categories such as Pechuga: which is distilled below hanging meat from Iguanas, Deers, Turkey, etc, Glass stabilized: which is poured in big glass containers and buried for the minerals of the earth to bring richness and stabilization to the spirit, and Abocado: which is the ones you see with scorpions and gusanos de maguey inside!
Besides Tequila and Mezcal, which are the most popular Mexican spirits, we have Sotol from chihuahua (which the Agave plant isn’t even and agave as it’s a biological relative of onions and garlics), Bacanora from Sonora, Raicilla from Los Altos de Jalisco, Charanda which is made from sugar cane and Comiteco from Chiapas which is distilled from Pulque…
Mexico is a very rich place on its own by its culture and gastronomy, and in the world of spirits and ferments, it’s got a lot to offer (: hope you like tequila ya'all!
Gracias. love agave spirits
Thanks! I love tequila to death, I hope to be able to visit Jalisco, at least, one day ✌🏻🤘🏻🤟🏻
I’m a huge fan of mezcal and your Channel. I’m Mexican and I’m very proud to ear you talk about Mexican spirits. Well done mi amigo. Great info all was right. Thanks! Vida is very smooth and silky, I like it. For your taste profile, you should try MonteLobos Ensamble, they mix some agaves and totally nailed it!
Fun fact: the Espadin takes around 8 years to grow and become mature (ready to harvest).
Agreed on the Montelobos. Erstwhile and Vago are a couple other brands to look for. Happily there are a lot more mezcals available these days.
I think Az gives the most useful reviews of a drink I've ever heard. They make sense. I've heard people say things about spirits like "hints of chocolate and plum" and I'm like "what are you talking about?" But everything Az said about the mezcal made total sense to me. I know exactly what she means.
Really enjoyed this one. I love Oz’s descriptions, “It tastes like fish." Anders, "It tastes like the sea." Oz, “Ya, like the sea." She brings an authenticity to the tasting that I think many will appreciate and enjoy! The two of you together in this were perfect!
think it may be "Az" ;)
Good video! Just tried Mezcal for the first time and I'm 63. Love the idea of a completely new category of spirits to explore! Appreciate the info.
I'm in Mexico drinking mescal on the beach while watching this. 🇲🇽
Mexican here: it’s interesting, whenever I see videos of mezcal and tequila from non mexican youtubers the brands are different from the ones I see in my local stores. The brands I always see in México are 400 Conejos, Creyente, Montelobos, Unión y Amarás.
I'm a Mezcal lover, and the mezcal that I have try is Toro Muerto Mezcal, from the state of Guerrero, MX.
Finaly someone that explains it very well. Also there are some other spirits made in different regions using other different varieties to make Bacanora, Raicilla and Destilados de agaves.
I bought a bottle of Cielo Rojo Bacanora by accident, thinking it was a Tequila. It was a happy accident, and is one of my favorite liquors now. Bacanoras are not easy to find in stock, and tend to be pricey, though.
Please continue this. Just like, turn it into an entire mezcal series. Like you said, mezcal is so vast and overwhelming, and there are so many to try and use spread vastly throughout liquor stores all over the states. You should do 3 or 5 at a time in this exact same format.
Anyhow, 3 chai white Russians in... I'm a fan.
OMG!!! I love this chick she’s hilarious. Please please more of her
Mezcal has quickly become one of my favorite spirts. Can't stop drinking Mezcal Negroni's. Love hearing the history as I am not sure I knew some of that. Great video! Cheers
Mezcal is one of my favorite things to just sip. It is fun to sip several different ones side by side.
My wife and I went to a Mexican bar a few months ago (I live north of Dallas so they're fairly common around here), and the bartender recommended Gracias A Dios mezcal. It's really good! As an experiment I paired it with the 8 year Rhum Barbancourt from Haiti, added in some Aztec chocolate bitters, and created the Smoky Haitian Sour. It turned out quite well. At some point I'll have to find the mezcals you tried here. Thanks Anders!
The Smoky Haitian Sour sounds incredible! I'll keep an eye out for that mezcal. Thanks for sharing - Cheers!
Az is back! Love it when she participates. Thanks for being a fellow newb!
During the Spanish Galleon, the Spaniards brought Filipinos over to Mexico and used Filipino clay pots to teach the people how to distill pulque. The Filipinos also taught them how to make tuba.
Super interesting. Thanks, Chris!
Yes Pulque was the gran dad of all agave spirits today.
in Mexican Mezcal Distilling
How 500 years and a 12,000 mile-trade route shaped modern mezcal.
By Caroline Hatchett
Published 04/27/23
Man pouring mezcal next to a Filipino-style still
Pedro Jimenez
Earlier this year, Tito Pin-Perez placed seven bottles of Mexican spirits on a bar-a line-up that showcased the country’s distillate diversity, including raicilla, pox, sotol, bacanora, artisanal Oaxacan mezcal, tequila, and tuxca. He poured a small glass of the tuxca first, then slid it across the bar. “Tuxca,” he said, “is actually the grandfather of all of these spirits.”
A New York bartender by trade, Pin-Perez moved to Mexico City during the pandemic and now oversees the bar programs at Fónico and Rayo, where his spirits selection and cocktail lists reflect his ongoing education and experience with Mexican distillates. Those include widely popular spirits like tequila and mezcal, but also an array of other agave-based distillates like bacanora, raicilla, and agave-adjacent sotol. But it’s tuxca that unlocked mezcal’s history for him.
“It helped me understand how it all connects,” says Pin-Perez.
Insecto Tuxca, the bottle he shared, lists some clues to that history on its label: Molienda a mano (milled by hand), fermentación en pozo de piedra volcánica (fermented in a volcanic stone pit), destilado de agave del sur de Jalisco (agave distillate from southern Jalisco), and destilador Filipino (Filipino still).
It’s the last of these descriptors that offers a deeper insight into the history of Mexican distilling. It’s a story that connects nearly five centuries of distilling in Mexico with a Pacific trade route that traversed 8,500 miles of ocean, and the Filipino sailors who brought unique stills and production techniques to the Central American region. It’s a story that stands in contrast to colonialism-a testament to ancient practices, Indigenous ingenuity, and mutual resistance.
Spout pouring mezcal distillate into clay container.
Pedro Jimenez
The Trans-Pacific Origins of Mexican Distilling
Native Mexicans cultivated agave for centuries before Spaniards showed up on their shores in 1519. They cooked and fermented piñas for sustenance. They drank mildly alcoholic pulque, made from fermenting the plants’ sap. But they did not distill its nectar into mezcal (or at least there is no definitive proof of pre-Columbian distillation, but more on that later). There’s nearly conclusive evidence, though, that Spaniards themselves did not introduce distillation to Mexico. Rather, they tried to squelch it.
In 1565, a little more than four decades after the Aztec Empire fell to Hernán Cortés and his troops, the Spanish conquered the Philippines. The same year, Spain established the 12,000-mile Manila Galleon trade route across the Pacific Ocean, connecting Manila and Acapulco. For 250 years, ships transported spices, silk, porcelain, and other cargo from Asia before returning from Mexico bearing New World silver.
“[Upon arrival,] sometimes whole crews would abandon ship and desert and then mix into the local population. It’s a testament to the cruelty of Spanish colonialism.”
-Rudy Guevarra Jr., Associate Professor Of Asian Pacific American Studies, Arizona State University.
By the early 1600s, skilled Filipino sailors made up the majority of these galleon crews of 100 to 350-plus men. Some were slaves and others underpaid navigators, and all endured tremendous hardship onboard. Crews suffered from scurvy, starvation, and dehydration. Adequate clothing was not provided, and making it to Mexico alive was not a given. In 1620 alone, two galleon crews lost 99 and 105 men, respectively, their bodies tossed overboard.
“[Upon arrival,] sometimes whole crews would abandon ship and desert and then mix into the local population,” says Rudy Guevarra Jr., an associate professor of Asian Pacific American Studies at Arizona State University. “It’s a testament to the cruelty of Spanish colonialism.”
Scholars estimate that 75,000 Filipinos settled in western Mexico during the Galleon era. According to Guevarra’s research, they married into Mexican families and blended into a community of similarly dark-skinned, mixed-race people who had Spanish surnames and practiced Catholicism. In turn, a great cultural exchange took shape, one that’s visible still in places like Acapulco and Colima.
Among other foodstuffs, Filipinos introduced tamarind, rice, mango de Manila, and coconuts to Mexico. Coconuts, brought over in 1569, would be the most consequential of them all.
Jimador in the agave fields.
Pedro Jimenez
Mexico’s First Distillate
Filipinos had a similar relationship with the coconut palm as Mexicans did with their native agave. Filipinos used the fronds for clothing, shelter, and tools. They ate coconut meat and milk, drank the water, and used various parts of the tree for medicinal purposes.
Filipinos fermented palm sap into the low-alcohol beverage tuba, similar to Mexican pulque, which you can still buy on the streets of Colima. In the morning hours, freshly made tuba is sweet and often enjoyed plain; by the afternoon tuba has a more prominent fermented tang and gets topped with peanuts, syrup, and fruit. Filipinos also transformed tuba into vinegar. To make tatemado, essentially a spicy Mexican adobo, cooks in Colima braise pork, chiles, and aromatics in coconut vinegar.
Filipino sailors also brought with them the technology to distill tuba into lambanog, known in Mexico as vino de coco. Newly arrived Filipinos established coconut palm farms, and vino de coco soon became the most important business in Colima. By 1631, the town produced 262,000 liters of the stuff, and as mining activity picked up in northern Mexico, vino de coco helped to fuel its workers’ labor.
It’s from this colonial soup of circumstances that mezcal, as we know it today, is thought to have emerged. “All the identified evidence suggests that agave distillation originated through adaptation of the coconut distillation process in Colima,” write Zizumbo-Villarreal and Patricia Colunga-GarcíaMarín in a 2008 landmark study.
Compared with the Arabic-style alembic stills used by Spaniards, the Filipino still is a rustic apparatus. There’s a hollow tree trunk-in Mexico, most often from the parota tree-that’s appended on either side with a copper bowl. Vino de coco distillers added tuba to the bottom bowl and heated it over a fire. The liquid turned to vapor, rose in the still, and hit the copper bowl on top, through which cold water circulated. The vapors condensed and fell in droplets onto a wooden gutter and through a spout into a clay vessel. Distillers repeated the process several times to achieve the ideal proof and composition.
Zizumbo-Villarreal and Colunga-GarcíaMarín’s study, as well as that of Paulina Machuca in 2018’s El Vino de Cocos en la Nueva España, stack evidence that Filipinos shared this technology with their new Indigenous and mixed-race neighbors and families. If this distillation process worked for tuba, why fermented agave?
Original Filipino-style still build into a perota tree trunk, and brick oven at Balancan distillery.
Ismael Gomez
Modern Mezcal Is Born
Of the 38 tabernas, or distilleries, Zizumbo-Villareal and Colunga-GarcíaMarín documented in southern Jalisco, 24 had coconut palm groves nearby. The research team also found greater agave diversity in southern Jalisco than in Tequila to the north, describing the region near the Colima volcano as “the nucleus of agave genetic diversity.”
For millennia, Indigenous Mexicans in the area had selected specific agave varieties suited to making pulque. They cooked agave in stone pits, smashed the piñas with mallets, and fermented pulque in wells carved into volcanic rock. Then this centuries-old beverage met the adaptable Filipino-style stills that had landed on nearby shores.
The first known documented reference to agave distillation comes from a Spanish cleric in 1619, who speaks of “mexcale” as an Indigenous drink produced on the coast and in the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains of Nayarit. Mezcal distillation was traveling north and south through ancient and mining-related trade routes, and, along with vino de coco, becoming an economic threat to imported Spanish brandy.
“The Spanish didn’t intend for the kind of interracial convergences that occurred between Indigenous and mixed-race Filipinos and Mexicans,” says Gueverra. “When this community started selling their own spirits and competing with the Spanish, it had this unforeseen impact on the culture.”
Starting in 1603, colonial powers declared a series of prohibitions on vino de coco and mezcal, and by the 18th century, Colima’s vino de coco industry had effectively vanished. Agave distillation, on the other hand, went clandestine in the foothills of the Colima volcano and continued to spread, according to Zizumbo-Villarreal and Colunga-GarcíaMarín. Underground fermentation in volcanic wells was easily concealed, and the lightweight Filipino stills could be easily disassembled and moved. And agave-sacred, wild, and abundant-had far more cultural import in Mexico than the newly introduced coconut palms.
that's a theory
but destillation happened in New Spain before that
Love the Door County beanie!
As a Mexican and professional bartender who has worked with mezcales, I love seeing how they share our culture and spirits. Thank you, we have many agaves and agave distillates that change depending on the state of their production
Finally watched all your vids and caught up to the new releases, thank you for all the free knowledge and entertainment, always concise!
Anders, your channel is a treasure trove of information brought in a highly entertaining manner. Thanks for the great content and this particular video on mezcal, I feel it's a category many people aren't entirely familiar with. Cheers!
¡Para todo mal, Mezcal; para todo bien, también!
Oaxaca has beautiful beaches, delicious dishes, amazing mezcalerías and magic mushrooms... To me that sounds like paradise jajajajaja.
Cheers froms México Anders!!
Excellent video. 🇲🇽
OK. You sold me! I'm off to Oaxaca!
in Mexican Mezcal Distilling
How 500 years and a 12,000 mile-trade route shaped modern mezcal.
By Caroline Hatchett
Published 04/27/23
Man pouring mezcal next to a Filipino-style still
Pedro Jimenez
Earlier this year, Tito Pin-Perez placed seven bottles of Mexican spirits on a bar-a line-up that showcased the country’s distillate diversity, including raicilla, pox, sotol, bacanora, artisanal Oaxacan mezcal, tequila, and tuxca. He poured a small glass of the tuxca first, then slid it across the bar. “Tuxca,” he said, “is actually the grandfather of all of these spirits.”
A New York bartender by trade, Pin-Perez moved to Mexico City during the pandemic and now oversees the bar programs at Fónico and Rayo, where his spirits selection and cocktail lists reflect his ongoing education and experience with Mexican distillates. Those include widely popular spirits like tequila and mezcal, but also an array of other agave-based distillates like bacanora, raicilla, and agave-adjacent sotol. But it’s tuxca that unlocked mezcal’s history for him.
“It helped me understand how it all connects,” says Pin-Perez.
Insecto Tuxca, the bottle he shared, lists some clues to that history on its label: Molienda a mano (milled by hand), fermentación en pozo de piedra volcánica (fermented in a volcanic stone pit), destilado de agave del sur de Jalisco (agave distillate from southern Jalisco), and destilador Filipino (Filipino still).
It’s the last of these descriptors that offers a deeper insight into the history of Mexican distilling. It’s a story that connects nearly five centuries of distilling in Mexico with a Pacific trade route that traversed 8,500 miles of ocean, and the Filipino sailors who brought unique stills and production techniques to the Central American region. It’s a story that stands in contrast to colonialism-a testament to ancient practices, Indigenous ingenuity, and mutual resistance.
Spout pouring mezcal distillate into clay container.
Pedro Jimenez
The Trans-Pacific Origins of Mexican Distilling
Native Mexicans cultivated agave for centuries before Spaniards showed up on their shores in 1519. They cooked and fermented piñas for sustenance. They drank mildly alcoholic pulque, made from fermenting the plants’ sap. But they did not distill its nectar into mezcal (or at least there is no definitive proof of pre-Columbian distillation, but more on that later). There’s nearly conclusive evidence, though, that Spaniards themselves did not introduce distillation to Mexico. Rather, they tried to squelch it.
In 1565, a little more than four decades after the Aztec Empire fell to Hernán Cortés and his troops, the Spanish conquered the Philippines. The same year, Spain established the 12,000-mile Manila Galleon trade route across the Pacific Ocean, connecting Manila and Acapulco. For 250 years, ships transported spices, silk, porcelain, and other cargo from Asia before returning from Mexico bearing New World silver.
“[Upon arrival,] sometimes whole crews would abandon ship and desert and then mix into the local population. It’s a testament to the cruelty of Spanish colonialism.”
-Rudy Guevarra Jr., Associate Professor Of Asian Pacific American Studies, Arizona State University.
By the early 1600s, skilled Filipino sailors made up the majority of these galleon crews of 100 to 350-plus men. Some were slaves and others underpaid navigators, and all endured tremendous hardship onboard. Crews suffered from scurvy, starvation, and dehydration. Adequate clothing was not provided, and making it to Mexico alive was not a given. In 1620 alone, two galleon crews lost 99 and 105 men, respectively, their bodies tossed overboard.
“[Upon arrival,] sometimes whole crews would abandon ship and desert and then mix into the local population,” says Rudy Guevarra Jr., an associate professor of Asian Pacific American Studies at Arizona State University. “It’s a testament to the cruelty of Spanish colonialism.”
Scholars estimate that 75,000 Filipinos settled in western Mexico during the Galleon era. According to Guevarra’s research, they married into Mexican families and blended into a community of similarly dark-skinned, mixed-race people who had Spanish surnames and practiced Catholicism. In turn, a great cultural exchange took shape, one that’s visible still in places like Acapulco and Colima.
Among other foodstuffs, Filipinos introduced tamarind, rice, mango de Manila, and coconuts to Mexico. Coconuts, brought over in 1569, would be the most consequential of them all.
Jimador in the agave fields.
Pedro Jimenez
Mexico’s First Distillate
Filipinos had a similar relationship with the coconut palm as Mexicans did with their native agave. Filipinos used the fronds for clothing, shelter, and tools. They ate coconut meat and milk, drank the water, and used various parts of the tree for medicinal purposes.
Filipinos fermented palm sap into the low-alcohol beverage tuba, similar to Mexican pulque, which you can still buy on the streets of Colima. In the morning hours, freshly made tuba is sweet and often enjoyed plain; by the afternoon tuba has a more prominent fermented tang and gets topped with peanuts, syrup, and fruit. Filipinos also transformed tuba into vinegar. To make tatemado, essentially a spicy Mexican adobo, cooks in Colima braise pork, chiles, and aromatics in coconut vinegar.
Filipino sailors also brought with them the technology to distill tuba into lambanog, known in Mexico as vino de coco. Newly arrived Filipinos established coconut palm farms, and vino de coco soon became the most important business in Colima. By 1631, the town produced 262,000 liters of the stuff, and as mining activity picked up in northern Mexico, vino de coco helped to fuel its workers’ labor.
It’s from this colonial soup of circumstances that mezcal, as we know it today, is thought to have emerged. “All the identified evidence suggests that agave distillation originated through adaptation of the coconut distillation process in Colima,” write Zizumbo-Villarreal and Patricia Colunga-GarcíaMarín in a 2008 landmark study.
Compared with the Arabic-style alembic stills used by Spaniards, the Filipino still is a rustic apparatus. There’s a hollow tree trunk-in Mexico, most often from the parota tree-that’s appended on either side with a copper bowl. Vino de coco distillers added tuba to the bottom bowl and heated it over a fire. The liquid turned to vapor, rose in the still, and hit the copper bowl on top, through which cold water circulated. The vapors condensed and fell in droplets onto a wooden gutter and through a spout into a clay vessel. Distillers repeated the process several times to achieve the ideal proof and composition.
Zizumbo-Villarreal and Colunga-GarcíaMarín’s study, as well as that of Paulina Machuca in 2018’s El Vino de Cocos en la Nueva España, stack evidence that Filipinos shared this technology with their new Indigenous and mixed-race neighbors and families. If this distillation process worked for tuba, why fermented agave?
Original Filipino-style still build into a perota tree trunk, and brick oven at Balancan distillery.
Ismael Gomez
Modern Mezcal Is Born
Of the 38 tabernas, or distilleries, Zizumbo-Villareal and Colunga-GarcíaMarín documented in southern Jalisco, 24 had coconut palm groves nearby. The research team also found greater agave diversity in southern Jalisco than in Tequila to the north, describing the region near the Colima volcano as “the nucleus of agave genetic diversity.”
For millennia, Indigenous Mexicans in the area had selected specific agave varieties suited to making pulque. They cooked agave in stone pits, smashed the piñas with mallets, and fermented pulque in wells carved into volcanic rock. Then this centuries-old beverage met the adaptable Filipino-style stills that had landed on nearby shores.
The first known documented reference to agave distillation comes from a Spanish cleric in 1619, who speaks of “mexcale” as an Indigenous drink produced on the coast and in the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains of Nayarit. Mezcal distillation was traveling north and south through ancient and mining-related trade routes, and, along with vino de coco, becoming an economic threat to imported Spanish brandy.
“The Spanish didn’t intend for the kind of interracial convergences that occurred between Indigenous and mixed-race Filipinos and Mexicans,” says Gueverra. “When this community started selling their own spirits and competing with the Spanish, it had this unforeseen impact on the culture.”
Starting in 1603, colonial powers declared a series of prohibitions on vino de coco and mezcal, and by the 18th century, Colima’s vino de coco industry had effectively vanished. Agave distillation, on the other hand, went clandestine in the foothills of the Colima volcano and continued to spread, according to Zizumbo-Villarreal and Colunga-GarcíaMarín. Underground fermentation in volcanic wells was easily concealed, and the lightweight Filipino stills could be easily disassembled and moved. And agave-sacred, wild, and abundant-had far more cultural import in Mexico than the newly introduced coconut palms.
The way you teach is incredible.
I learn the best from you.
Thank you so much.
¡EXCELENT VIDEO!
I'm a big time Mezcal aficionado and I have to say you got many things right.
Mezcal was made in the whole country, basically anywhere Agave grew. Idiots in the SecretarIa de Economía of a past government tried to redefine it by indicating only a few states who could make it and adding the stupid idea of wood aging, which was added to Tequila in the 70's and even allowing a percentage of cane sugar in the mix. Before that nobody would ever consider aging mezcal (or Tequila) in wood. Also, they indicate a max alcohol content of 40º, which always involves adding water to the mix. No good mezcal has water added to it.
The mezcales you tried are pretty good. But you have to try varieties like Tobalá or Madre Cuixe, they make some spectacular Mezcales.
Love your channel, keep the videos coming!!!
Thanks for the lesson in the differences between the two liquors and thank you for more Az, always a welcome addition!
I very much enjoy the descriptions from Az! She reminds me of myself when I’m tasting something because certain smells remind you of memories (e.g., dentist office, bandaid, etc.). Love it!
Very informative! Learned a thing or two! Love the Duo Videos with Az!
My favorite spirit by far, and partly because I don’t know anything about it. Thank you for changing it! This would be an awesome series to continue
Congrats to 150k subscribers! 🥳
I’ve been binging this channel since Saturday Jan 1... I LOVE IT HERE. Very informative.
I just bought my first bottle of Vida no joke, right after you uploaded this. Cheers
We're on the same wavelength - Cheers, Jeffrey!
dude your channel is beyond fantastic for those of us who love to drink your recipes are top end
I love Az rocking the Door County hat!
Minor correction: Blanco (or silver if the label is in English) is aged zero to two months. Joven is a mix of blanco and reposado.
Great video! Oz’s tasting notes are great!
Love using Mezcal as a replacement in whiskey cocktails.
This was a really fun video, cheers!
Another entertaining and informative video. Loved how you guys, mostly Az, were searching for words to describe the sensations. Fish! Paint! I get it, I do the same.
Yesss! I've been waiting for this episode
Thank you Andres. Great videos and appreciate you sharing about agave. My personal spirit of choice.
Quite fascinating!
I work in a dental office. That comment was cracking me up. When I tasted Vida the first time, I tasted rubber tires. No I’ve never licked a rubber tire but I’ve been in the car doing a burn out on asphalt. That smoke gets in mouth.
😂🤣. I’m trying to like the Vida. Maybe it’ll grow on me. It’s my first Mezcal ever!
Thanks for all the info!
The editing was very good this episode, like the classic presentation style!
This video is awesome!
I'd love to see some of your go to cocktails you make with Mezcal!
Finally I know a little more about mezcals! Thanks
Thank you for the video guys! Spreading the word of Mezcal ^.^ Hoping my local Binny's has Tileno so I can' get it asap. Happy holidays!
Some great mezcal brands:
Mezcal Amores
Mezcal Pierde Almas
Mezcal 400 Conejos
And the great mezcal distilled in Matatlan, Oaxaca...if you ever go there you should try the madrecuixe which is a type of agave.
in Mexican Mezcal Distilling
How 500 years and a 12,000 mile-trade route shaped modern mezcal.
By Caroline Hatchett
Published 04/27/23
Man pouring mezcal next to a Filipino-style still
Pedro Jimenez
Earlier this year, Tito Pin-Perez placed seven bottles of Mexican spirits on a bar-a line-up that showcased the country’s distillate diversity, including raicilla, pox, sotol, bacanora, artisanal Oaxacan mezcal, tequila, and tuxca. He poured a small glass of the tuxca first, then slid it across the bar. “Tuxca,” he said, “is actually the grandfather of all of these spirits.”
A New York bartender by trade, Pin-Perez moved to Mexico City during the pandemic and now oversees the bar programs at Fónico and Rayo, where his spirits selection and cocktail lists reflect his ongoing education and experience with Mexican distillates. Those include widely popular spirits like tequila and mezcal, but also an array of other agave-based distillates like bacanora, raicilla, and agave-adjacent sotol. But it’s tuxca that unlocked mezcal’s history for him.
“It helped me understand how it all connects,” says Pin-Perez.
Insecto Tuxca, the bottle he shared, lists some clues to that history on its label: Molienda a mano (milled by hand), fermentación en pozo de piedra volcánica (fermented in a volcanic stone pit), destilado de agave del sur de Jalisco (agave distillate from southern Jalisco), and destilador Filipino (Filipino still).
It’s the last of these descriptors that offers a deeper insight into the history of Mexican distilling. It’s a story that connects nearly five centuries of distilling in Mexico with a Pacific trade route that traversed 8,500 miles of ocean, and the Filipino sailors who brought unique stills and production techniques to the Central American region. It’s a story that stands in contrast to colonialism-a testament to ancient practices, Indigenous ingenuity, and mutual resistance.
Spout pouring mezcal distillate into clay container.
Pedro Jimenez
The Trans-Pacific Origins of Mexican Distilling
Native Mexicans cultivated agave for centuries before Spaniards showed up on their shores in 1519. They cooked and fermented piñas for sustenance. They drank mildly alcoholic pulque, made from fermenting the plants’ sap. But they did not distill its nectar into mezcal (or at least there is no definitive proof of pre-Columbian distillation, but more on that later). There’s nearly conclusive evidence, though, that Spaniards themselves did not introduce distillation to Mexico. Rather, they tried to squelch it.
In 1565, a little more than four decades after the Aztec Empire fell to Hernán Cortés and his troops, the Spanish conquered the Philippines. The same year, Spain established the 12,000-mile Manila Galleon trade route across the Pacific Ocean, connecting Manila and Acapulco. For 250 years, ships transported spices, silk, porcelain, and other cargo from Asia before returning from Mexico bearing New World silver.
“[Upon arrival,] sometimes whole crews would abandon ship and desert and then mix into the local population. It’s a testament to the cruelty of Spanish colonialism.”
-Rudy Guevarra Jr., Associate Professor Of Asian Pacific American Studies, Arizona State University.
By the early 1600s, skilled Filipino sailors made up the majority of these galleon crews of 100 to 350-plus men. Some were slaves and others underpaid navigators, and all endured tremendous hardship onboard. Crews suffered from scurvy, starvation, and dehydration. Adequate clothing was not provided, and making it to Mexico alive was not a given. In 1620 alone, two galleon crews lost 99 and 105 men, respectively, their bodies tossed overboard.
“[Upon arrival,] sometimes whole crews would abandon ship and desert and then mix into the local population,” says Rudy Guevarra Jr., an associate professor of Asian Pacific American Studies at Arizona State University. “It’s a testament to the cruelty of Spanish colonialism.”
Scholars estimate that 75,000 Filipinos settled in western Mexico during the Galleon era. According to Guevarra’s research, they married into Mexican families and blended into a community of similarly dark-skinned, mixed-race people who had Spanish surnames and practiced Catholicism. In turn, a great cultural exchange took shape, one that’s visible still in places like Acapulco and Colima.
Among other foodstuffs, Filipinos introduced tamarind, rice, mango de Manila, and coconuts to Mexico. Coconuts, brought over in 1569, would be the most consequential of them all.
Jimador in the agave fields.
Pedro Jimenez
Mexico’s First Distillate
Filipinos had a similar relationship with the coconut palm as Mexicans did with their native agave. Filipinos used the fronds for clothing, shelter, and tools. They ate coconut meat and milk, drank the water, and used various parts of the tree for medicinal purposes.
Filipinos fermented palm sap into the low-alcohol beverage tuba, similar to Mexican pulque, which you can still buy on the streets of Colima. In the morning hours, freshly made tuba is sweet and often enjoyed plain; by the afternoon tuba has a more prominent fermented tang and gets topped with peanuts, syrup, and fruit. Filipinos also transformed tuba into vinegar. To make tatemado, essentially a spicy Mexican adobo, cooks in Colima braise pork, chiles, and aromatics in coconut vinegar.
Filipino sailors also brought with them the technology to distill tuba into lambanog, known in Mexico as vino de coco. Newly arrived Filipinos established coconut palm farms, and vino de coco soon became the most important business in Colima. By 1631, the town produced 262,000 liters of the stuff, and as mining activity picked up in northern Mexico, vino de coco helped to fuel its workers’ labor.
It’s from this colonial soup of circumstances that mezcal, as we know it today, is thought to have emerged. “All the identified evidence suggests that agave distillation originated through adaptation of the coconut distillation process in Colima,” write Zizumbo-Villarreal and Patricia Colunga-GarcíaMarín in a 2008 landmark study.
Compared with the Arabic-style alembic stills used by Spaniards, the Filipino still is a rustic apparatus. There’s a hollow tree trunk-in Mexico, most often from the parota tree-that’s appended on either side with a copper bowl. Vino de coco distillers added tuba to the bottom bowl and heated it over a fire. The liquid turned to vapor, rose in the still, and hit the copper bowl on top, through which cold water circulated. The vapors condensed and fell in droplets onto a wooden gutter and through a spout into a clay vessel. Distillers repeated the process several times to achieve the ideal proof and composition.
Zizumbo-Villarreal and Colunga-GarcíaMarín’s study, as well as that of Paulina Machuca in 2018’s El Vino de Cocos en la Nueva España, stack evidence that Filipinos shared this technology with their new Indigenous and mixed-race neighbors and families. If this distillation process worked for tuba, why fermented agave?
Original Filipino-style still build into a perota tree trunk, and brick oven at Balancan distillery.
Ismael Gomez
Modern Mezcal Is Born
Of the 38 tabernas, or distilleries, Zizumbo-Villareal and Colunga-GarcíaMarín documented in southern Jalisco, 24 had coconut palm groves nearby. The research team also found greater agave diversity in southern Jalisco than in Tequila to the north, describing the region near the Colima volcano as “the nucleus of agave genetic diversity.”
For millennia, Indigenous Mexicans in the area had selected specific agave varieties suited to making pulque. They cooked agave in stone pits, smashed the piñas with mallets, and fermented pulque in wells carved into volcanic rock. Then this centuries-old beverage met the adaptable Filipino-style stills that had landed on nearby shores.
The first known documented reference to agave distillation comes from a Spanish cleric in 1619, who speaks of “mexcale” as an Indigenous drink produced on the coast and in the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains of Nayarit. Mezcal distillation was traveling north and south through ancient and mining-related trade routes, and, along with vino de coco, becoming an economic threat to imported Spanish brandy.
“The Spanish didn’t intend for the kind of interracial convergences that occurred between Indigenous and mixed-race Filipinos and Mexicans,” says Gueverra. “When this community started selling their own spirits and competing with the Spanish, it had this unforeseen impact on the culture.”
Starting in 1603, colonial powers declared a series of prohibitions on vino de coco and mezcal, and by the 18th century, Colima’s vino de coco industry had effectively vanished. Agave distillation, on the other hand, went clandestine in the foothills of the Colima volcano and continued to spread, according to Zizumbo-Villarreal and Colunga-GarcíaMarín. Underground fermentation in volcanic wells was easily concealed, and the lightweight Filipino stills could be easily disassembled and moved. And agave-sacred, wild, and abundant-had far more cultural import in Mexico than the newly introduced coconut palms.
I love mezcal and tequila. A bartenderette at my local cocktail bar suggested I try a mezcal old fashioned the next time I'm in. Great job!
Learned a lot from this. Thanks Anders and Az!
Cheers, David!
Love Mezcal and your videos in general. Would love to see a video on Clairin. I've seen it referred to as the Mezcal of the rum world, and it definitely lives up to that description!
Hi Anders….just recently discovered a new cocktail using mezcal. The “ Ultima Palabra”, a riff on the wonderful Last Word. Since I first heard about the last word on your channel. I thought I’d like to share it.
Cheers,
Thanks so much for this, But you need to do more! I'm a fan of Mezcal. I like that while it is smokey, it also has a vegetal quality, and the smoke never seems oily. Given the massive popularity, and the constraints of production, I'm very concerned about consuming ethically. I understand that sustainability is a big issue. I pick everyone's brains about this all the time.
I’m not a brand rep or anything but if you want a sustainable mezcal, look for Mezcal Amarás! I bartend at a tequila and mezcal bar, and we had a rep come in and explain to us their process. Some of the proceeds go back to Mexican villages where they actually make the mezcal, and for every agave plant they use, they plant 3 more. They make the mezcal using old world methods, and not to mention it’s pretty damn tasty! I realize I sound like a rep lol but we had tastings at my work and Mezcal Amarás is the only brand out of like 4 or 5 that came in and actually explained what they’re doing to help the local communities, remain sustainable, and what methods they use to make the Mezcal.
Actually I was wrong I looked on their website and they plant 7 agaves for every 1 they use
I absolutely love mezcal!
i just learned so much, will be checking out mezcal. thank you.
I love Mezcal and you sad some really interesting information in this episode. Thank you and cheers Anders and Az! 🥂
Such a fun spirit to work with! And so many different bottles to try. Cheers, my friend!
Please please make a vid like this for every spirit there is! I would love to hear and learn from a true master the origins of the various spirits we commonly drink and use!
Great video, great couple, great channel Keep it up Anders & thank you
Cheers, Michael!
I learnt about mezcal when I went to Oaxaca a few years ago.
There was a "feria de Mezcal" (Mezcal fair) happening, where you could taste more than 50 different mezcals for a small entrance fee (less than 5 dollars!). I cant recommend that enough.
What a great video
Amazing content dude! very well explained!
Cheers!
Anders great video! I appreciate the intro to Mezcal, something that I too am a little unfamiliar with. ALSO, almost at 150,000 let's keep it going!!! Cheers.
Thanks, Jack!
Love the Door County Brewing hat
love you guys i will try alland more
This video was awesome. The animations were so cute!! Really want to try more mezcal.
Thank you so much! The animations are my favorite part to - that’s all Az!
Mezcal and Tequila are like squares and rectangles I guess. Awesome video as always!
The perfect analogy.
Love the expedition into mezcal! Admittedly always a bit nervous purchasing mezcal/tequila due to some of the sustainability and processing concerns.
May I suggest a deep dive into Vermouth? So many different things to explore - dry, sweet, Blanc, chambery, vanille, etc. Even something as simple of grabbing a bottle of Noilly Prat's dry gets complicated when you're offered the Original Dry and French dry.
Great videos as always! We love mezcals and make palomas with tequila and mezcal regularly! Would love your take on a paloma and/or similar drinks! Cheers to the weekend, hope you both have a great one.
I appreciate this channel. I keep a bottle of smoky Fidencio Mezcal around, but have added Vida to my shopping list to try!
Another great video Anders! Would you be able to make a tips video for making non-alcoholic cocktails?
I prefer mezcal over tequila, and Vida is my favorite! If I had only one spirit I could enjoy the rest of my life I would choose mezcal. Love a mezcal last word!
I got a chance invite to a mezcal tasting at my favorite local bar (industry night invite-only thing) and had my mind blown by talk of regional variety, terroir, elevation, rainfall averages, soil composition... There's so much to know!
Love Mezcal!!!
Love the tasting videos! Will you be doing more history lessons?
Thanks, Chris! Happy you liked it - plan to cover more history/spirits in the future. Cheers!
I've always loved Mezcal ever since I first tasted it in Baja California many, many years ago and yes, I did eat the "worm" hahaha! Tried some really smooth Mezcals when I was out in Vegas two years ago and picked up a bottle of Del Maguey Vida this morning. Can't wait to have it!
That ending was amazing :D
the Corte Vetusto is a catgeory on its own. Interesting seeing that being paired after Vida.
Love the videos man!
Question for ya! Would you ever release a recipe book? By style or liquor? I would love to get it
You are “a capo “ , dude!! (Capo means boss , alright? So , it's good)
Love this channel !
I was just out looking for another bottle of mezcal. How convenient!
Great minds think alike. Cheers, Jared!
it goes so well with pinneaple and honey
love the Anders lore
I stopped working in restaurants and bars when the pandemic hit, but your videos have been helping remind me what’s incredible about food drink history and hospitality 🤙🏾 Thanks!
Hitting up Curiada RIGHT NOW!!! More AAAAAAZZZZ!!!
Lol I love your descriptions!
I enjoyed learning that tequila is steamed while mezcal is roasted.
I like to say mezcal is to bourbon if tequila is to whiskey. Just in terms of the smokiness. Mezcal definitely gives me bourbon vibes sometimes.
Pelton de la muerte is pretty tasty and a surprisingly good price point.
Been on a Mezcal kick lately. The Naked and Famous and the Oaxaca Old Fashioned are some of my favorites!
I love your channel Anders. Thanks for all the great content. If possible, could we have a new Tiki video please? Have a great weekend.
Thanks, Matthew! I've got a few other vids lined up, but will keep tiki in mind! 🍹
I've been hearing a lot about Benedictine recently. I was wondering if you could do a video showcasing it. Seems like an interesting ingredient.
Please do! I only know 2 cocktails that call for it and one of them i learned from this channel! I would like to utilize it more as it’s been in my bar for months and is still practically full
Some of favorite cocktail haunts have been switching up their menu for the holidays and I've seen it being used across the board. Those were some tasty drinks.
That’d be awesome! I love Benedictine but don’t really know what to do with it in a way that highlights the Benedictine as the main component
agree strongly
I will be buying some mescal this weekend
Informative as usual. Is there a way we can get a video like this about rum? I know there are a lot of different types of rum but they vary by region. Keep up the great work
very informative 😎👍
Hey Anders, Our friend Tim Kirkland from Spirit of the Cocktail did a nice tribute to you with a semester abroad 😎
With all that Mezcal on hand, might I suggest a video for the Oaxaca Old Fashioned?
I'm a bar manager/part owner, and I'm currently stuck on how to improve some aspects of our operations. Primarily hygiene and glass maintenance. Do you think you could make a video on how different types of glasses should be cleaned and stored?
I know you mostly do videos on cocktails and liquors, but I find a lot of your videos to be very helpful in my line of work. I would love to see more videos from you that talk about the operations behind the bar!
I love the Mezcals of ❤️Del Maguey❤️
But you have to try the Mezcal Local! It's a Pechuga style Mezcal, a sub categorie of Mezcal where they usually put a peace of chicken meat into the still and redistill the Mezcal (there is also Mezcal de Pechuga by Del Maguey). But for the Mezcal Local they use fruits like papaya and so which makes its nice and smooth and gives it a certain hint of funkieness!
And if you are a bit more into Mezcal you definetly have to check out Dr. Sours Cocktail Bitters. These are Cocktail Bitters on a Mezcal basis and aromas like tobacco, cocoa, hibiscus and so on. Very nice 😉
Anders, my wife and I love your and Oz' channel. Our home bar has tripled lol. We need more mezcal, chartreuse, and Fernet drinks... Also, can you make a Peanut Malt Flip sometime?
I love your approach to cocktails. Recently I have been experimenting with mixing Mezcal and bourbon‘s. The results have been delicious you should give it a shot. It kinda come much across like a pitied bourbon
all Mexican mezcal lovers, here in the comments, very proud of this video. THANKS ANDERS
Bit disappointed because you only tasted espadines! But overall great content, you did a great job explaining the basics of this agave delicacy, educating and entertaining us at the same time. My top 3 mezcales are Tobalá (perhaps the best mezcal of all IMO), Jabalí and Cuishe
Madre Cuishe is a fav of mine. Don’t sleep on Coyote either.
It's really easy. Tequila is a Mezcal made with "BLUE AGAVE ONLY" from Jalisco. Mezcal on the other hand can be made with 20 different varieties of Agave plant from different regions in Mexico.
The ancient Maya also had an agave drink that was open-air fermented called balché. It was um... frequently consumed not using their mouths but other means