Hunting the Wild: Mezcal and Oaxaca

Hunting the Wild: Mezcal and Oaxaca

If Canada is our virgin aunt, reserved and kind, fundamentally decent, maybe yearning for a little more fun in her life, then Mexico is our somewhat wild older cousin, also fundamentally decent, with perhaps a rougher sense of justice, and given to escapades and wild excesses; he drinks mezcal.

Tequila, by far the better known and perhaps more beloved beverage of this country, is strictly name-controlled and, many times, the product of large scale production under the aegis of semi-mythical corporate personalities like Jose Cuervo and Don Julio.

Truth be told, tequila seems a somewhat more evolved drink, with more time and attention and pesos having been expended in its development toward becoming a world-class beverage.

Mezcal is produced mostly in Oaxaca, unlike tequila which can be produced only in Jalisco (think Champagne).

Mezcal in Oaxaca seems largely the province of small producers, families who put their own names on the signs outside their buildings.

Driving up through Oaxaca from Huatulco to the state capital, Ricardo Torres, excellent driver and former chef, pulled over in Matatlan, a town that produces pretty much one thing: mezcal.



We got an overview of the process of mezcal creation.

At ten years, the green agave plant (blue agave=tequila) is stripped of spiny leaves, and the resulting “pineapple”-looking plug is cooked, usually in a pit in the ground. This cooking process is critical; if you don’t smoke the agave plugs, you get raicilla, which is not good (though I’ve had my share of it)



The “pineapples” are then ground up, as Torres dramatically demonstrates, by a horse who walks in a circle for days, smashing the plant to threads.



Add water to begin funky fermentation.



Distilling is next. Thank you, Spanish empire, for contributing this technology to the indigenous Zapotec-Mixteco, who already enjoyed pulque, also an agave-based beverage, though not distilled.



After that, the mash can be aged, for the anejo and reposados, in oak or other wood, or the mezcal can be consumed young, unaged, which is the preferred way for sommeliers (mezcaleros?) who wish to savor the fundamental promise of a batch. We tried it in many ways.



We tasted all of these El Palmillo mezcals, and based on The Wife’s finer sense of taste, bought two, including a tobilo, which is made from a wild agave. Now, my experience is that wild plants and animals are frequently tastier than domestic varieties. The tobilo had an almost anise flavor, sweet, with a lot of dimension, and none of the petroleum notes I’d noticed with some of the crummier mescals I’ve swilled. The only available version was an anejo, so that’s what we got (about 350 pesos, a little over 25 bucks). Being an aged version, it was smooth, and yet perhaps because wild, it had a punchy streak of personality. An excellent purchase.

Traveling on Mexican back roads high in the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca – kind of like riding out a hurricane – is scary fun, and I’m glad I didn’t hear about narco-mofos offing journos until I got home, but of all the places I’ve visited in the past year, Mexico remains my favorite. I like the people, the food, the language, the history, the mezcal. I could live there. Maybe someday I will.

Headed back to Huatulco, Torres hit his brakes when we saw a serpentine line of cars backed up from a small white church that stood just outside San Jose del Pacifico, a hamlet with some underground renown as a source for psilocybin mushrooms, sometimes sold preserved in honey. We waited outside San Jose del Pacifico for a few hours.



Story is, the government had withheld some allocated funds (as in, they kept it for their own purposes), and this small village responded the only way they knew how: by blockading traffic for a day or days, as needed.

Torres chatted up the villagers. They were laughing and having a good time. Then he said, “You know, I have some tourists with me and we really have to get to Huatulco for a flight.”

Their response, entirely predictable, was basically “Take another route, cabron, because you’re not coming through here.”

Torres said sometimes these guys have machetes. "It's about pride," quipped Torres. There was no way we were getting through, so we turned tail back to Oaxaca City.

As you can see in the above photo, a Federale showed up. They told him, too, to turn back and take another route. A blockade is a blockade. He left.

This bloqueado resulted in hours lost. It may still be going on, for all I know. But I liked it. It was wild.

David Hammond wrote:Distilling is next. Thank you, Spanish empire, for contributing this technology to the indigenous Zapotec-Mixteco, who already enjoyed pulque, also an agave-based beverage, though not distilled.

Not entirely true. Many studies suggest that the Filipinos brought distillation techniques to Mexico:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/q83682q9l7615486/

Which of the mezcals you tried was smokiest?

kanin wrote:

David Hammond wrote:Distilling is next. Thank you, Spanish empire, for contributing this technology to the indigenous Zapotec-Mixteco, who already enjoyed pulque, also an agave-based beverage, though not distilled.

Not entirely true. Many studies suggest that the Filipinos brought distillation techniques to Mexico:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/q83682q9l7615486/

Which of the mezcals you tried was smokiest?

Thanks, kanin, I had not heard that theory. Though the Phillipines at that time were part of the Spanish Empire, of course, it's very interesting that the technique of distilling may have come from Filipinos and not Iberian Spaniards. Did distillation exist in the Phillipines before Spanish colonization?

There is a good deal of smoke in the Tobilo, but I'm not sure that there was more or less smoke-flavor in any of the reposados or anejos we tried (which is not to say that there are not some manufacturers who go for a smokier taste). All of it seems to get pretty much the same treatment in hot pit, and none that we had was anywhere near as smoky as, say, even a moderately-smoked Scotch. What seemed to make a big difference was barrel aging, with the three-year old anejos being extremely (almost too) mellow (I prefer a bit of bite, and that roughness is lost, by design, with aging).

Coconut-based spirits did exist in the Philippines pre-colonialization. It's called lambanog and may be sold in the US as coconut vodka. I'll be happy to email you the entire research paper if you're interested. Dry read but lots of interesting info.

kanin wrote:Coconut-based spirits did exist in the Philippines pre-colonialization. It's called lambanog and may be sold in the US as coconut vodka. I'll be happy to email you the entire research paper if you're interested. Dry read but lots of interesting info.

Sure, kanin, I'd like to see that paper. Thanks, David@DCHammond.com.

David Hammond wrote:Mezcal is produced mostly in Oaxaca, unlike tequila which can be produced only in Jalisco (think Champagne).

While tequila does have a designation of origin associated with it and is primarily produced in Jalisco, the designation of origin apparently extends to certain municipalities/counties in Nayarit, Guanajuato, Michoacán, and Tamaulipas. See the description and map from the tequila regulatory authority (the industry trade group that appears to set standards) here. Jalisco is the only state that gets blanket approval.

Matt wrote:

David Hammond wrote:Mezcal is produced mostly in Oaxaca, unlike tequila which can be produced only in Jalisco (think Champagne).

While tequila does have a designation of origin associated with it and is primarily produced in Jalisco, the designation of origin apparently extends to certain municipalities/counties in Nayarit, Guanajuato, Michoacán, and Tamaulipas. See the description and map from the tequila regulatory authority (the industry trade group that appears to set standards) here. Jalisco is the only state that gets blanket approval.

There are other "authorities" that say Jalisco is the only place tequila can be produced (e.g., http://www.askmen.com/fine_living/keywords/tequila.html) but the authority you cite seems more authoritative. Thanks for the clarification.

Yes, I have seen that stated in a lot of other places. I think this is somewhat similar to "bourbon can only come from Kentucky" in terms of being a persistent myth/misunderstanding -- although stating that tequila can only come from Jalisco is actually closer to the truth (as Jalisco is the only state in which it can be produced everywhere) than the bourbon one (as bourbon can be produced only in the U.S., but in any state). In both cases, though, the lion's share of production is in the state with which people most closely associate the spirit.

Great write-up, by the way; makes me want to go out and try/buy some mezcal. I must admit I have never had it solo (only in cocktails); hope to remedy that soon.

Matt wrote:Great write-up, by the way; makes me want to go out and try/buy some mezcal. I must admit I have never had it solo (only in cocktails); hope to remedy that soon.

I cannot bear to use any of the mezcal I brought home in a mix, though the day after I got back, we bought some less distinguished mezcal for making margaritas. I had mezcal margaritas the first time at Topolobampo, and I much prefer it to tequila. The smokiness goes surprisingly well in a citrusy margarita.

The tobilo and punta I gotta drink straight because I don't want to miss anything.

David Hammond wrote:I cannot bear to use any of the mezcal I brought home in a mix, though the day after I got back, we bought some less distinguished mezcal for making margaritas. I had mezcal margaritas the first time at Topolobampo, and I much prefer it to tequila. The smokiness goes surprisingly well in a citrusy margarita.

Try the Speaking in Tongues cocktail if you ever find yourself at Sable or otherwise have the ingredients on hand. It's the only cocktail in which I have had mezcal and everything works quite well together. Will have to try a mezcal margarita next I am at Frontera.