Phoney
Well-Known Member
Good day gentlemen,
I thought I might share this with you..... Yesterday morning my girlfriend and I just returned home from a 7 week adventure through Mexico (as well as Cuba, Guatemala & Belize, but that's another story). Now before I left I knew a little about tequila, other than that good tequila (ie: not Jose Cuervo) is hard to come by and is expensive in Australia and I knew very little about Mezcal, other than that it's similar to tequila, it often comes 'with a worm in it' and that both are made from the blue Agave cactus...somehow.
Boy have I learnt a thing or two. Upon catching up with a friend of mine (and mezcal aficionado) who lives in Mexico city I discovered that tequila is somewhat more of a "commercial" drink, produced by big distilleries and is mainly sold either for export, or for the domestic tourist industry. While mezcal on the other hand is more of a handcrafted artisan, mostly produced by over 9000 family run distilleries in 7 of the 32 Mexican states, and is made from different varieties of Maguey (agave americana sp) than Tequila. With all of the different varieties of Maguey (there are about 160) and all of the different regions that produce Mezcal, it's a lot like our wine industry in that there are hundreds of varieties of Mezcal with subtle differences between each one. The government had even brought in a law to force producers to mark on the bottle the region, the batch number and the variety of Maguey. Oh, and the worm is nothing but a marketing gimmick for tourists.
So we first hit up a Mezcaleria in the trendy, upmarket Mexico City district of Condesa. It was basically a small bar full of 'young, hip' & well off Mexicans that slightly resembled an old fashioned pharmacy. The bar had glass shelves full of identical looking bottles lined neatly on the back wall, and on the other wall were larger bottles turned upside down onto dispensers. The menu of mezcal was several pages long and at that point after determining that the barman could speak english I said "Hello, im from Australia and I know nothing about mezcal"
He seemed very enthused and spent about 15 minutes describing all of the different varieties of mezcal, where they are produced, how they are produced, and gave me lots of free samples. ). Unlike our pitiful "shots" they serve it in 90ml glasses, and they ranged from about AUD$2.50 up to about $8 a glass. It is supposed to be sipped and savoured like a fine single malt whiskey and accompanied with chili salt and slices of orange, rather than be knocked back. There were ones which were smoked, ones which were aged in old red wine barrels (which gave them a rose colour), ones which were mashed with all sorts of ajuncts like cinnamon, fruit, etc, and a whole heap of others which I cannot remember. Most of them were very, very smooth with complex flavours and no throat "burn". An absolute pleasure to sip on.
So anyway, 5 weeks or so later we arrive in the southern state of Oaxaca which is famous for producing a sizeable chunk of Mexico's mezcals and in it's capital city, Oaxaca there were mezcal stores everywhere selling bottles and tacky souveniers. So we asked around about mezcal fabricas (factories) which do tours and got instructed to get a bus and a taxi out to a small town about an hour out of the city. So sure enough after passing hillside after field after hillside planted with agave cactii, as we started approaching this town the highway was lined on either side with these "factories" and shops, selling mezcal...... and tacky souveniers. So we picked a random one and told the taxi driver to stop. Now before I embarked on this factory tour, I was expecting a warehouse kind of setup with stainless steel vats and workers in uniforms... Uh ah, this may as well have been a distillery a hundred years ago! As a beer brewer I was shocked at how un-sterile this place was, ill now show you some photo's.
This is the Maguey cactus growing. They do this for 8 - 10 years before they are harvested.
These are the cactus 'hearts' which is basically what you see above but with all of the leaves chopped off. They call em pineapples, for obvious reasons.
Then they throw them into a big pit dug into the ground, bury them and build a bonfire on top to bake them. I think this loosens them and helps liquify up the sweet nectar. It tasted like honey. They keep them buried for 60 days IIRC.
Then they chop them up with a machete, put them into this circular thing, and on other end of this heavy concrete wheel, is a yoke attached to a donkey that walks around in circles to crush up the cactus. (the girl couldnt speak a word of English and my Spanish is fairly basic so all of this may not be 100% accurate)
Then they put them into these wooden vats to ferment. It stunk of rotting fruit and was covered in fruit flies! In fact this whole shed smelt of horseshit, rotting vegetables and smoke from the fire of the distillery!
The girl assured me that this posed no problem whatsoever...
Fermenting away....
This is their high tech distillery...
It is distilled three times to get to the right concentrate (usually 38 - 55%)
This is a still sitting out the front on the highway, perhaps to lure in tourists like me.
Then it is stored in barrels from between 6 months and 8 years!
Before it's sold and consumed!
Now I was told everywhere that even though slightly more expensive Reposado (Rested, for up to 1 year) and aejo (aged, for up to 3) or grand reserve (aged for up to 8) were the best mezcals to drink and buy, and upon sampling a few dozen from this factory and the stores in Oaxaca city I agreed. However when I finally got back to Mexico City and returned to the Mezcaleria just last week to buy a few bottles to take home, I noticed that 99% of their stock were blanco's (white, not aged) and the guy told me that the Mezcals I would have tried would have been made purely for tourists and not purists. He was the expert after all. His were definitely very nice, if not nicer than any of the ones I tried before, and exactly not cheap either ($55 a bottle), so looks like ive still got a lot of learning to do. It's just a shame that mezcal isnt really available here like it is over there, but once my supplies are eventually depleted I will have my friend mail it over for me.
Mexican beer on the other hand is less than impressive. As you probably know, it's dominated by two giant companies and Corona & Sol are the two biggest brands. There are other brands and styles put out by these companies but to be honest they're all pretty tasteless. I did find a boutique beer shop in Mexico City that sold good European beer and stocked a range of Mexican microbreweries beer, but unfortunately none of these beers are really sold in bars and restaurants over there.
Well, thankyou for your time and I hope you enjoyed my presentation! Has anyone else got Mexican mezcal stories to share?
I thought I might share this with you..... Yesterday morning my girlfriend and I just returned home from a 7 week adventure through Mexico (as well as Cuba, Guatemala & Belize, but that's another story). Now before I left I knew a little about tequila, other than that good tequila (ie: not Jose Cuervo) is hard to come by and is expensive in Australia and I knew very little about Mezcal, other than that it's similar to tequila, it often comes 'with a worm in it' and that both are made from the blue Agave cactus...somehow.
Boy have I learnt a thing or two. Upon catching up with a friend of mine (and mezcal aficionado) who lives in Mexico city I discovered that tequila is somewhat more of a "commercial" drink, produced by big distilleries and is mainly sold either for export, or for the domestic tourist industry. While mezcal on the other hand is more of a handcrafted artisan, mostly produced by over 9000 family run distilleries in 7 of the 32 Mexican states, and is made from different varieties of Maguey (agave americana sp) than Tequila. With all of the different varieties of Maguey (there are about 160) and all of the different regions that produce Mezcal, it's a lot like our wine industry in that there are hundreds of varieties of Mezcal with subtle differences between each one. The government had even brought in a law to force producers to mark on the bottle the region, the batch number and the variety of Maguey. Oh, and the worm is nothing but a marketing gimmick for tourists.
So we first hit up a Mezcaleria in the trendy, upmarket Mexico City district of Condesa. It was basically a small bar full of 'young, hip' & well off Mexicans that slightly resembled an old fashioned pharmacy. The bar had glass shelves full of identical looking bottles lined neatly on the back wall, and on the other wall were larger bottles turned upside down onto dispensers. The menu of mezcal was several pages long and at that point after determining that the barman could speak english I said "Hello, im from Australia and I know nothing about mezcal"
He seemed very enthused and spent about 15 minutes describing all of the different varieties of mezcal, where they are produced, how they are produced, and gave me lots of free samples. ). Unlike our pitiful "shots" they serve it in 90ml glasses, and they ranged from about AUD$2.50 up to about $8 a glass. It is supposed to be sipped and savoured like a fine single malt whiskey and accompanied with chili salt and slices of orange, rather than be knocked back. There were ones which were smoked, ones which were aged in old red wine barrels (which gave them a rose colour), ones which were mashed with all sorts of ajuncts like cinnamon, fruit, etc, and a whole heap of others which I cannot remember. Most of them were very, very smooth with complex flavours and no throat "burn". An absolute pleasure to sip on.
So anyway, 5 weeks or so later we arrive in the southern state of Oaxaca which is famous for producing a sizeable chunk of Mexico's mezcals and in it's capital city, Oaxaca there were mezcal stores everywhere selling bottles and tacky souveniers. So we asked around about mezcal fabricas (factories) which do tours and got instructed to get a bus and a taxi out to a small town about an hour out of the city. So sure enough after passing hillside after field after hillside planted with agave cactii, as we started approaching this town the highway was lined on either side with these "factories" and shops, selling mezcal...... and tacky souveniers. So we picked a random one and told the taxi driver to stop. Now before I embarked on this factory tour, I was expecting a warehouse kind of setup with stainless steel vats and workers in uniforms... Uh ah, this may as well have been a distillery a hundred years ago! As a beer brewer I was shocked at how un-sterile this place was, ill now show you some photo's.
This is the Maguey cactus growing. They do this for 8 - 10 years before they are harvested.
These are the cactus 'hearts' which is basically what you see above but with all of the leaves chopped off. They call em pineapples, for obvious reasons.
Then they throw them into a big pit dug into the ground, bury them and build a bonfire on top to bake them. I think this loosens them and helps liquify up the sweet nectar. It tasted like honey. They keep them buried for 60 days IIRC.
Then they chop them up with a machete, put them into this circular thing, and on other end of this heavy concrete wheel, is a yoke attached to a donkey that walks around in circles to crush up the cactus. (the girl couldnt speak a word of English and my Spanish is fairly basic so all of this may not be 100% accurate)
Then they put them into these wooden vats to ferment. It stunk of rotting fruit and was covered in fruit flies! In fact this whole shed smelt of horseshit, rotting vegetables and smoke from the fire of the distillery!
The girl assured me that this posed no problem whatsoever...
Fermenting away....
This is their high tech distillery...
It is distilled three times to get to the right concentrate (usually 38 - 55%)
This is a still sitting out the front on the highway, perhaps to lure in tourists like me.
Then it is stored in barrels from between 6 months and 8 years!
Before it's sold and consumed!
Now I was told everywhere that even though slightly more expensive Reposado (Rested, for up to 1 year) and aejo (aged, for up to 3) or grand reserve (aged for up to 8) were the best mezcals to drink and buy, and upon sampling a few dozen from this factory and the stores in Oaxaca city I agreed. However when I finally got back to Mexico City and returned to the Mezcaleria just last week to buy a few bottles to take home, I noticed that 99% of their stock were blanco's (white, not aged) and the guy told me that the Mezcals I would have tried would have been made purely for tourists and not purists. He was the expert after all. His were definitely very nice, if not nicer than any of the ones I tried before, and exactly not cheap either ($55 a bottle), so looks like ive still got a lot of learning to do. It's just a shame that mezcal isnt really available here like it is over there, but once my supplies are eventually depleted I will have my friend mail it over for me.
Mexican beer on the other hand is less than impressive. As you probably know, it's dominated by two giant companies and Corona & Sol are the two biggest brands. There are other brands and styles put out by these companies but to be honest they're all pretty tasteless. I did find a boutique beer shop in Mexico City that sold good European beer and stocked a range of Mexican microbreweries beer, but unfortunately none of these beers are really sold in bars and restaurants over there.
Well, thankyou for your time and I hope you enjoyed my presentation!
Has anyone else got Mexican mezcal stories to share?
