Ron Cooper from Del Maguel says that Mexicans have a phrase “ You don’t find Mezcal, Mezcal finds you” and so it did.

Mezcal literally translates as “oven cooked agave”.

It is made from around 30 varietals of agave, with 7 dominating. Grown in desert land , the hearts are chopped out of the monster plants and then cooked in a pit (covered with stone) for 3 days, then the cooked agave is mixed with water and spontaneously fermented in barrels, then double distilled in alembic stills. The liquid is colourless and translucent and traditionally drunk neat as a single village mezcal, where it would be made with great pride for celebrations and traditional festive days. The knowledge passed from generation to generation.

Ron Cooper illuminates the rise of this agricultural drink in his book “Finding Mezcal”. The story in the US was of terrible hangovers for college kids who drank poorly made Mezcal but the cool kids sought out the good stuff and developed an appreciation for this smokey spirit. They sought out the good producers, driving down miles and miles of dirt roads, dozens of miles from the nearest highway in Oaxaca in Mexico where 90% of all Mezcal is made. Looking for the tell tale grinders that signalled the location of a mezcal producer. The first people to appreciate Mezcal were the chefs who in turn influenced the bar tenders who then found the mixologists and eventually sommeliers. Currently some 330 hectares of agave are grown, some 9000 producers make 6 million litres a year and about 150 brands are in the market place and growing.

As for the future, it seems that agave varietal is probably not the way to go in marketing but single village marques or distinctive expressions that show the hand of the maker or the altitude/terroir may be.