This is the second in a series of articles from Alvin Starkman, M.A., J.D. about production of the agave distillate, mezcal. Alvin has written over 75 articles and two books about mezcal and was the first individual to offer mezcal tours in Oaxaca. You can read the first article here.
The naysayers, as well as many of the pundits and so-called mezcal experts, are critical of the agave distillate industry – lamenting that it is no longer sustainable.
They are the same people who blanketly criticize multinational corporations and celebrities owning mezcal brands.
They appear to be against big business being in the industry, and they cry cultural (mis)appropriation, with almost all of the sports and movie star owners being non-Mexican.
It becomes overly easy for alcohol aficionados to jump on the non-sustainable bandwagon because they hate big business, and I suppose to a somewhat lesser extent, celebrity wealth.
In reality however, traditionally made agave distillates represent an extremely sustainable Mexican industry, and its growth is to a great extent fostered by both big business and celebrity incursion.
The Growth of the Industry
Before embarking upon the nitty gritty of the thesis, let’s deal with the Pernod Ricards and Bryan Cranstons of the business, that is, big business and the stars as they relate to actually enhancing the growth in agave distillate industry sustainability.
At least this is the case in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca where most mezcal is distilled.
Two decades ago, mezcal production was a relatively modest industry, barely a blip on the tequila and other spirits radar.
Then the explosion began, first with the sale of the Del Maguey brand to Pernod Ricard.
Following suit were spirits conglomerates such as Diageo, Bacardi, and others buying brands in which they perceived profit potential.
Tequila had already begun to attract celebrities, and so George Clooney, Adam Levine, The Rock, Lebron James, and others began attaching their names to the blue agave (Agave tequilana WEBER) distillate.
Then finally on the mezcal side, Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad notoriety formed Dos Hombres.
Celebrities attract regular folk who know the stars’ names but in many cases not even what mezcal is.
Sales accordingly dramatically increase once fans catch wind of such spirit endorsements. Some become fans of the spirit, some don’t, and others move forward to become ardent promoters of high quality mezcal.
On the other side, the corporations with the mega-bucks have a global reach, and therefore sales, and of course production, skyrockets.
In the state of Oaxaca alone, there has likely been a tenfold (if not greater) increase in mezcal production since the Pernod Ricard purchase.
Oaxaca is arguably the second poorest state in all Mexico, with only tourism and agriculture at its back.
To my thinking, a dramatic increase in mezcal sales, not only in the US and Canada, but also in the UK, Australia, Belgium, France, Central and South America and elsewhere, each helps the Oaxacan regional economy.
But many decry such a rapid increase in mezcal production in Oaxaca, claiming there’s a lack of land, a lack of water, a lack of wild agave, and a lack of trees to convert to fuel.
They point to corporate greed raping the countryside leaving the producers (palenqueros as they’re locally known) poor, as they’ve always been, if not worse off.
The industry, they claim, is just not sustainable.
However, most of those who spout negativism do not live here and fail to appreciate how the positives greatly outweigh whatever negatives there might be.
They fail to see any altruism in the world, and that it can be part and parcel of capitalism.
They don’t pay attention to the drastic improvement in the economic lot of palenqueros, their families, and entire villages, let alone the state economy.
Industry investors indeed want to turn their capital into more.
They recognize the need for a continuous supply of agave, water, and firewood for ovens and stills.
There is an abundance of still-virgin land in Oaxaca for growing agave.
So land is not an issue.
Some claim that with more farmers planting agave than ever before, production of other crops will suffer.
But many agricultural workers plant corn, beans, squash, and / or garbanzo in between their rows of agave, thereby addressing the potential problem.
And since agave, a succulent, takes in moisture during the rainy season so as to be sustained during the dry season, if small tender agave is planted during the rainy season, no irrigation is required for the rest of the growth of the plant, be it for another 3, 5, or 15 or more years.
Some Claim We Will Soon be without Wild Agave
True enough, palenqueros are harvesting agave from the wild, but usually with permission from their communities.
Both they, their communities, and brand owners, recognize where their bread is being buttered.
Thus to ensure an ongoing supply of “wild” agave, there is an accepted business model whereby for every agave removed from the wild, two should be planted.
More and more, agave is being grown in greenhouses, from seed and from harvesting baby agaves from the flower stock (maguey de quiote).
They are then transplanted in the wild.
Yes, there is now an issue of what one ought to term these plants once mature, since although they may be left in the wild to grow, they have been started and transplanted by humans.
But that’s for another discussion.
A similar issue related to stripping the hills and forests, has arisen regarding trees, because traditionally produced mezcal employs firewood to bake and to distill.
Reforestation projects which are at work during the rainy season, center upon planting saplings.
Let’s not forget the dreaded worm, or gusano, actually a larva which can infest and ultimately kill an agave.
They are harvested from the plant, and have a multiplicity of applications.
For example, they are dried, crushed and mixed with salt and chile to produce sal de gusano for rimming cocktail glasses or added to slices of orange or lime and used as a chaser.
They are infused into mezcal to change the distillate’s flavor; and they are employed by traditional cooks and modern chefs alike to make a salsa, and at times otherwise used in creating Oaxacan cuisine.
The wood employed to fuel the in-ground ovens need not be of high quality, such as the straight logs used in the lumber industry.
The agave distillate business can use cheaper logs, crooked or infested, as long as they are large enough.
And the wood used to fuel stills can similarly be of any type, and even, as many palenqueros have learned, discards from the debarking industry.
When a lumber yard shaves all four sides of a log to remove the bark, virtually always there is wood left on the bark.
It is now often used to fuel stills, at a lesser cost to the distiller than having someone harvest wood from fields and forests.
The quiote is often dried and used as firewood.
Much more so in earlier times than today, several feet of it is hollowed out and turned into a musical instrument, a didgeridoo of sorts.
The flowers from the stalk can be stuffed and eaten as a delicacy.
The bottom end of the stalk, rich in carbohydrates, still today is ground together with corn, so as to add a bit of extra sweetness to tortillas.
The agave leaves (pencas) are generally not used to make mezcal.
However they are not simply waste.
They are often left on the ground in the field, and once partially dried and not as heavy, villagers harvest them, take them home, dry them out entirely, and employ them as fuel, to make tortillas, moles and salsa.
They are also used to fuel the rudimentary kilns for making pottery.
The roots of the agave are not used to make mezcal, and so they too are often dried and used as firewood.
Some species of agave, in particular Agave americana, find yet another use for its pencas.
A well entrenched Oaxacan tradition is to use these pencas as flavor-enhancement when barbacoa is made.
Barbacoa, a typical fare for fiestas, is made by slow cooking any type of meat, but most often goat or sheet, in a sealed in-ground oven over fire and rocks.
Several Agave americana pencas can rest atop the meat, sometimes first grilled, all in that enclosed chamber beneath ground level.
And finally regarding the pencas, its fiber is dried and spun into rope, grain sacks, clothing, lamp shades, and umpteen other products.
During earlier times it was used as a needle and thread, their ends being as sharp as a needle.
When pulled back while still attached to a strand of fiber, it becomes an instant needle and thread.
Many artisans who produce brilliantly painted carved wooden figures (alebrijes) use the pointed ends of the pencas to paint tiny fine dots as part of the designs.
Returning to actual production, the in-ground sealed chamber (horno), usually consists of, in this order, tree trunks, rocks, waste fiber (bagazo) from the distillation process, the agave hearts (piñas) often another layer of bagazo, usually a layer of either plastic, tarp, grain sacks which have been sewn together, or palm leaf mats (petates).
Finally, dirt is piled on top until there is no smoke escaping, thus creating a seal for the oven.
Then after approximately five days cooking, the oven is emptied and is ready for another bake with a new batch of piñas.
At the bottom of the horno there is charcoal, since there has not been oxygen entering the oven burning the wood to ash.
The wood itself can be from any type of tree although the preference is a hard wood such as oak or mesquite.
The charcoal is typically used as fertilizer to grow agave, corn or any other crop. It is also used by the palenquero’s family to cook, or sold by the grain-sack-full to anyone who needs charcoal for business purposes.
Crushing the baked, sweet agave can be accomplished using a variety of methods, mainly if done traditionally (for producing artesanal mezcal) employing a beast of burden which drags a stone wheel (tahona) around a shallow enclosure.
The animal need not be dedicated to this type of work, meaning if a horse it can also be used for riding, if a team of oxen they can also be used for ploughing, and if one or more mules they can be used for riding, or carrying agave piñas or firewood from the field.
Thus, the animal(s) are typically multi-purpose to the extent required by the mezcal operation.
I know of one American distiller who used to drive his car over the baked agave in order to crush it, admittedly hardly traditional, but nevertheless it did the trick.
Next is fermenting.
Any receptacle may be used to hold the now crushed agave.
Usually it is a wooden slat vat of 1,000 or so liters. But it can be accomplished in a plastic container, a concrete enclosure, an animal skin, and frequently cracked clay distilling containers which have been repaired with cement.
More sophisticated operations employ stainless steel, but it is certainly not necessary. The point is simply that anything can be, and is in fact used.
The water which is added can and does come from various sources, depending on the palenquero’s inclination and availability.
Usually it is well water, but sometimes mountain spring water or river water based on the season.
No yeast is added, but rather airborne yeasts on their own begin to interact with the sweet baked crushed agave which has had water added.
Often the agave is not crushed for two or more weeks after being removed from the oven. Mold forms, contributing to the fermentation process.
For the first of the (usually) two distillations, the crushed fiber goes into the still along with the now fully fermented liquid.
This bagazo, be it from a clay pot, or stainless steel or copper alembic, can serve as an insulator so that the piñas do not come in direct contact with the hot rocks.
It is commonly also used as compost, as mulch, and to make adobe bricks when mixed with water and earth.
Some brands have the bagazo turned into paper for their labels.
The water to make the adobe is frequently the waste water produced at the end of the first distillation.
Earlier I mentioned using cracked, then repaired, clay pots for fermenting.
Inevitably the clay pots crack, typically from when the fiber is being pitched out of them, even though the likelihood of this happening is reduced by using a tree branch as a pitch fork.
I have often seen a wife attending at the still opening when production is occurring, and removing some of the hot embers, which she then uses to cook.
The still opening is often an old dump truck tire rim.
Proof Mezcal Is a Sustainable Industry
The foregoing represents but a few aspects of mezcal industry sustainability:
- Land is in abundance
- Multiple crops are planted between the rows of agave
- Both community members and brand owners small and large all get it, and work towards a common goal of preserving agave and forests for the future
- Multiple sources of water are used as are available, and are recycled
- In fact every step in the process yields new products with multiple uses
- Equipment employed has come from different applications
- What the environment yields, finds multiple uses
- Industry growth builds village roads, schools, water filtration plants and more
“Waste” as we typically term it, simply does not exist.
Big business and celebrity involvement indeed has the potential to adversely impact the industry and Mexico more generally.
But each dramatically increases production, and has the potential for enhancing sustainability.
The only issue is how do we continue to promote this type of increase in production, while at the same time maintain the same quality of distillate and employ the same traditional means of production and tools of the trade.
It is a fine balancing act.
About the Author: Alvin Starkman has been a mezcal aficionado for more than three decades. As the first individual to offer mezcal tours in Oaxaca, he operates Mezcal Educational Excursions of Oaxaca. Alvin has written over 75 articles and two books about mezcal.
Alvin also posts photos from his Mezcal excursions on the Mezcal Tours Facebook Page.
