![]() ![]() All the intense energy and flavorful components built up in the 8 to 15 years it takes the plant to mature, meant to be used to grow that huge stalk and produce flowers – just before it dies. The agave is the most complex and interesting plant distilled by humans. ![]() His neighbor Don Beto, who crushes his roasted agaves with mallets, creates rich distillates that are amazingly clean. The mezcals of Don Valente of San Andrés are complex and focused. San Baltazar is always soft: I can recognize their mezcals blind. Their soils, the altitude, differing wild yeasts, different ambient temperature of fermentation, and above all the individual production styles, often developed over 3 or more generations: these create distinctive mezcals. The agaves themselves have genetic differences from growing for decades in a unique part of the Oaxaca Valley. Each Alipus distiller produces highly individuated mezcals. Here’s Karina Abad talking mezcal with Don Beto and Don Valente. These agaves have to work hard to mature: no wonder their mezcals are mineral and intense. Here is espadín growing on a steep thin calcareous hillside near Santa Ana del Rio. ![]() Don Valente of San Andrés adds a little madrecuishe ( agave Karwinskii), common practice in his area of Miahuatlan. Except for Potrero/San Miguel, where they distill semi-wild arroqueño ( agave americana), all Alipus comes from cultivated espadín ( agave angustifolia). Their Los Danzantes restaurant in Oaxaca (whose population is 48% indigenous, most of it socially and economically marginalized) is now famous.Īnsley Coale of Craft Distillers, who brought Alipus to the USA, deeply shares this motive.Īlipus comprises now nine small family distilleries (some also distill for Mezcalero). To source mezcal for their restaurants, they founded Alipus in 1997, and are largely responsible for getting mezcal accepted as a world-class spirit. They started several restaurants for integrating regional indigenous cooking into fine cuisine, sourcing ingredients from local indigenous suppliers. Three generations of the Cruz family, who distill for Alipus, in their agave fields above San Juan del Rioīrothers Jaime and Gustavo Muñoz are dedicated to bridging the profound gulf between Mexico’s colonial-derived ruling society and its millions of indigenous peoples. It will take hard work and serious intention to keep the artisans who make great mezcal from being forced into the commercialization – and the changes in how they live and work – that took the heart out of bourbon, cognac, tequila. A 20% use of Arroqueno agaves is foreseen only in the case of the Mezcal distilled in Olla de Barro by Don Felix Garcia in San Miguel.The essence of the Alipus project : to keep artisanal mezcal authentic by protecting the way the distillers work and the way they live from the powerful forces of rapid modernization. The research of Los Danzantes is limited to only mezcal from Espadin agaves cultivated in order to limit to zero the environmental cost deriving from the continuous selection of wild maguey. The whole process takes place in the villages that live in their families for generations. Joel Cruz of San Juan, Baltazar Cruz Gomez of San Luis, Hernandez Melchor of Santa Ana, Cosme and Hirilo Hernandez of San Baltazar are the maestros who select the agaves, bake them in underground stone ovens, mill them with horse-drawn wheels on stone floor, let the fermentation develop naturally and eventually distill in traditional copper stills. Each edition takes its name from the village in which it is distilled and is an expression of the terroir, of how geographic agents interfere with fermentation and how each single master interprets distillation. to preserve and preserve the role of the mezcalero and his family in their territory so that the production of mezcal continues to be the activity. Alpus mezcal series#CRISPO - SUGARED ALMOND WITH DIFFERENT TASTESĪlipus contains a series of Espadin agave mezcal selected and bottled by the Los Danzantes distillery. ![]()
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