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….kzfaq.info/get/bejne/o7uKrcxmmp3XZHU.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

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.

Gracias. love agave spirits

Thanks! I love tequila to death, I hope to be able to visit Jalisco, at least, one day ✌🏻🤘🏻🤟🏻

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.

think it may be "Az" ;)

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.

The Smoky Haitian Sour sounds incredible! I'll keep an eye out for that mezcal. Thanks for sharing - Cheers!

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.

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

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.

We're on the same wavelength - Cheers, Jeffrey!

Cheers, David!

Cheers, Michael!

Cheers!

Thanks, Chris! Happy you liked it - plan to cover more history/spirits in the future. Cheers!

Great minds think alike. Cheers, Jared!

Thank you so much! The animations are my favorite part to - that’s all Az!

Such a fun spirit to work with! And so many different bottles to try. Cheers, my friend!

Thanks, Jack!

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

Hey Anders, Our friend Tim Kirkland from Spirit of the Cocktail did a nice tribute to you with a semester abroad 😎