When Ever López sent me a FB-friend request last year, I accepted
it without knowing much about him. My interest in mezcal results in a lot of those,
and if the person seems to be authentically engaged in the world of mezcal, I
usually friend them. I checked out his page, saw some agaves, gave him a wave
and a thumbs up; that was about it. But when his Sierra Negra mezcal arrived as
part of my Maguey Melate subscription in June 2024 and it was outstanding, I
took more notice. Enough that I contacted Edgar Leon from Maguey Melate and arranged to pay Ever a visit at his place in S.C. Albarradas.

So glad we did. The drive is long and winding with a good length of dirt track
involved, but the views are stunning as you drive through the pine forests and
wild agave strewn hills of the Sierra Norte.  Ever greeted us at his palenque and had kindly
timed his day so we could participate in the loading of the horno, la tapada..
We watched as they blessed the agaves by chanting a prayer while slapping each
with a tree branch, which was then thrown into the horno  to be consumed and get rid of bad luck.  After loading the oven, they then covered the agaves in fresh green brush prior to covering in dirt. Both of these acts were firsts in my experience with mezcal; there is always something new to learn.

Wesampled some excellent clay pot mezcals and were treated to a great lunch of
chili rellenos at his family’s house.  His mom and wife and other family members prepared the feast, and we were joined by his palenque team (Father in law, cousin, and friends) in consuming it.

Afterwards, we returned to the palenque to drink some beers we’d brought, have
a few more copits,and look at his setup.   He has some unique processes that are demanded by his environment.  His fermentation is done in cement tinas that are sunken in the ground; this to give them some insulation from the cold winter nights that can stop a fermentation. And the tanks are stained black, due to his use of tepahuaje tree bark. Known as the “skin tree” and touted for
medicinal purposes and wound care, the bark from this mimosa plant also has high
enzyme and nitrogen levels. These assist in stimulating yeast to keep fermenting when temperatures are lower.  Othersin S.C. Albarradas )including Ever’s neighbors and well-nown Cinco  Sentidos  mezcaleros Alberto Martinez and Reynaldo Alejandro)similarly use this technique.  Ever handcrushes in a cement canoa and distills in clay pots.

This trip turned out to be a low yield experience. While we’d planned on visiting Alberto Martinez too, things went awry and he was unavailable to us, so we only visited the one palenque. And our timing was bad in that Ever only had two mezcals available for sale; he’d run out of the coveted Sierra Negra. But despite that, it remains one of my favorite visits. Being immersed in a full day with his lovely family, being made a part of the tapada de horno, and the lunch celebration made it a memorable day.   We bought several liters of the mezcals that were available.  Ever
quoted me what I thought was a ridiculous price, and after some insistence we settle on paying twice what he asked for it. 

So if you’re looking to maximize a day of tasting and touring, or a chance to try a lot of agaves in a short span of time, S.C. Albarradas may not be tyourright choice. But if you’re looking for a beautiful drive to a kind community that also harbors a small number of excellent mezcaleros makng claypot and cowhide mezcals of the local Sierra Negra, Jabali, and wild espadins you might want to pay a visit.  (Ever has begun working with cowhide fermentation since the day when I made this visit.)

We tried:
Espadin Silvestri 52@
Espadin Capon 50%
Sierra Negra. 49%.

Tobala50%

Pictures:
Ever
The road to Albarradas
Horno loading
Greens covering the agave

Stained cement tina
Claypots with a view
Canoa and mallets

Hey all - as I have been on this spirit journey, I have a fair amount of Tequilas and it is pretty apparent the different profiles between the locations. Does Mezcal follow the similar profiles of fruity/sweet for highland and vegetal/peppery for lowland?

I know there are a lot of forward tasting honey or smokey mezcals. I'm looking to taste both or even a caramel tasting, smokey one would be great.

Thank you :)

Has anyone tried this ?

I am 18 months into broadening my experience with different Mezcals and Raicillas, I'm from the UK, just a working class guy who works in construction, I wish to plan a trip next year to deep dive into the knowledge, history's and traditions of creating and distilling the former by having an extended trip to Mexico, firstly I would like to ask for recommendations for books to read all about Mexican spirits from their Inception to distillation (yes I could garner all that information from the net), but i prefer physical books, secondly is it possible to work voluntarily for Mezcaleros and Palenques to work, live and breath these wonderful spirits in order to truly have a deeper understanding🙏🏻 physically through toil and tasting the expressions through different agaves and regional variations🙏🏻.

I'm fairly new to mezcal and there are a lot of options at my local store. I went with the Cuish Papalometl today. What would you all choose for the next pick up?

(I’ve enjoyed revisiting my memories and posting about some previous palenque visits. People seemed more positive than negative, so I’ll post some more. But my intention is not to spam the site or overrun it. So if you’ve seen enough of these, please feel free to say so or give me a negative vote and I’ll decist.) That said:

This father and son team cooperatively grow agaves, and work  together on distillations, but still take pride and differentiate on their expressions.  One will be labeled as Felipe’s, another as Ageo’s; they put their name on the ones they consider theirs.   

A visit to the homes and palenque of Felipe and Ageo Cortes is a fantastic experience.  They are gracious hosts and they lay out an incredible array of mezcals to try.  And as is often the case in visiting palenques (at least in my experience and quite possibly the difference is my perception), a first visit feels a more polite and restrained interaction, whereas a second or third becomes like visiting an old friend.  Polite greetings get replaced by broad smiles of recognition and warm handshakes and it just improves with each visit.

Located east of the city of Miahuatlan in the village of Mengoli de Morelos, a visit to their place begins with a drive past the large federal penitentiary that resides just west of them; a sobering reminder to be on good behavior or risk the consequences.  Their property has sweeping views of agave fields and arroyos, with that stern prison in the far background.   Father and son share the palenque and fields while residing in their own houses on the property.

They use a tahona wheel to crush their agaves, and it’s one of the prettiest I’ve seen; a maxtrix of river rocks embedded in cement. The pad they crush on is similarly beautiful.  The old wheel was still in use on our prior visit; worn down and shrunken in size, while a brand new wheel stood ready to replace it. On our most recent visit, the nubbed down old wheel was still in use.  Their tinas are wood, and on the day of our visit, there was a Jabali bubbling so aggressively that it had been weighed down with planks of wood and heavy stones to keep it in its place.  

They do double distillation in copper stills (unless it’s Jabali, which earns a third pass.). They typically distill around 48%.   They are well known to foreign consumers by their many bottlings for Mal Bien, Maguey Melate, and Agave Mixtapes.

After touring the palenque and wandering the fields of agaves, we returned to Felipe’s house for a tasting. I can only say that it is an embarrassment of riches.  Their routine on our visits is to simply line up 20+ expressions and say “help yourself”.  And while I’ve happily done so on a first visit, I’ve quickly learned that this is also a recipe for disaster if you have any more tastings planned for the day.  So on this visit, I choose to limit my choices by asking them to pick for me.

Pointing at the 25 bottles in front of me, I asked Felipe and Ageoto each choose four that they felt  best expressed their mezcals style.  Judging by their reaction, I think this tactic worked really well.  They definitely stopped, pondered…pulled a bottle forward then pushed it back in exchange for another…before making their choices.  With their favorites selected,I then chose 4 more that I was interested in as well, and that probably saved the rest of my day. 

We tried:
Coyote 2026 by Ageo – distilled the day of our arrival.
Espadin 2015- Felipe.  An oldie but a goodie.
Madrecuiche 2025 Felipe
Tobasiche 2023  Felipe
Jabali BIcuixe 2024 Felipe
Coyote Tobala 2025 Ageo
Arrequeno 2024 Ageo
Tornillo 2024 Felipe
Tepextate 2023 Felipe
Coyote 2023 Felipe
Puntas Madrecuiche 72% Felipe
Tobasiche Sierra Negra 2025 Ageo

It was a wonderful morning’s visit.  We ended up buying 8 liters of 10 varietals, thanked our hosts and left gifts for the children , fresh fruits for the ladies of the house, and headed out to our next stop.  If you ever have the desire to visit..you should.

Pictures:
Father and son

Brace yourself for their tasting

Old and new tahona wheels

Ageo with coyote (top) and tobala pinas

Crazy jabali Fermentation

Agave fields.

Felipe

Was in Coyoacan last week and popped into Alianza. Here'e the mezcals they offer, I picked up the blue bottle 'Despacio.' Haven't tried it yet but will let you know when I do

I very rarely see any mentions of Scorpion Mezcal i the different mezcal threads. It's a great product, though.

mezcalero: Valentin Cortes
location: Santiago Matatlan, Oax
maguey: chuparrosa (hybrid of americana and angustifolia)
oven: conical in ground
Molienda: tahona
distillation: double, copper alembique
distillation date: 2/2023
Lote: 1
Grado: 52%
Bottle: 132/922 (375ml)

Nose: sweet, green, bell pepper
Palate: cotton candy, mild jalapeno, salty lime, marigold flower

Very good but not exceptional imo, and relatively benign for a chuparrosa. Drinks way below 52% though

Bought this bottle in an artesanal shop in playa del carmen. Because it has cajeta in it, how long will it keep? Its sealed and i dont want to open it until im back in canada in 3 days.

La Mixteca Region Palenque Tour Stop 6 – Amando Alvarez – Santa Maria Ixcatlán

After our morning of confused hotel rooms and missed connections,  we said good-bye to Cornelio’s wife and headed on to our last stop of this three day tour. We were heading to Santa Maria Ixcatlán, to meet Amando Alvarado, the well known maestro who does cowhide fermentation and clay pot distillation for his papalomet mezcals.  But first, we had to have some more confusion.

The first dose came in the form of a disappearing road. We’d been directed to a dirt road that would save us an hour or so of driving, but it grew progressively worse until it became unpassable. So bad and narrow that we had to back up several hundred meters before we could even effect our 10-point turnaround, this ended up costing us a couple of hours.  As a result, we didn’t arrive in S.M. Ixcatlán until late in the afternoon.

The second bit of unexpected chaos was a great kind; there was a festival going on!
While Ixcatlán once was a thriving town with thousands of residents, its industry has withered, it’s young people move out, and its currently home to only 500 people. Typically now a town of many buildings but few people; but not today.

Omar has set us up with a wonderful surprise, by planning our arrival day to coincide with Ixcatlán’s annual religious celebration, the “Santuario del Señor de las Tres Caidas”, or “The lord of the three falls”.  It celebrates the bible passage when Jesus is walked to Calvary and he falls three times while carrying the cross. Ixcatlan is the focus of an annual pilgrimage to honor this event and an image of it that resides in the church.  Thousands of pilgrims descend upon the town for a celebration that goes on for several days, and we’d pulled into town at the event’s apex.  There were tents setup in very vacant lot in town, food stalls and vendors everywhere, and thousands of people about.

Of course, this celebration combined with our late arrival meant all our plans went awry. Don Amando had meant to show us his palenque early in the day, so that he could then attend to festival responsibilities that night. There was no time now to go to the palenque, as he was busy helping out in his families small shop. But come, come, we’ll go there now for a meal!  

The next six hours were absolute wonderous mayhem. Much of it forgotten in the haze of firework smoke and too many copitas of excellent cuero de vaca mezcals. We joined the parade as we walked toward Don Amandos. I noticed we were attracting a lot of attention; it was only several hours later that I realized why:   we were the only two Caucasian tourists in the entire town.   This resulted in a constant stream of curious stares, shy greetings, and braver questioning from those who spoke a bit of English.  Id’ often find myself talking to someone and then there would be 3 people…then 7…then 15.  As Omar said “You got interviewed a lot today”.

When we got to the shop, we found they’d converted it into a restaurant for the festival. There were 25-30 people crowded around tables, eating goat stew and quesadillas and drinking Victorias.  We were ushered into the kitchen, where we met Amandos family and ate around a big table.  The meal was delicious, and so too were the copitas of Papalomet that we were offered.  I’ve heard the term “funky” mentioned for  owhide mezcals in the past, and I’ve tasted a few that would qualify, but these were at another level. Super lactic, with an almost cheesecake flavor in the background.  Excellent stuff.  And the difference between it and Jose Froylan, who also uses cowhide but treetrunk rather than claypot, was marked.

We headed out from there to check out the dances, shop at the stalls, and drink more mezcal. We went to the Community Hall, where we were told that the townspeople provided free meals to the pilgrims…and that the local mezcaleros had each donated a garafon of their mezcals.  While most were being fed at tables outside, our unexpected appearance got us inside access, and we spent the next hour meeting a half dozen mezaleros and sampling their wares. I’m pretty sure Amando’s son was one of them, and I distinctly remember Victor Munoz; partly because he was a cop AND mezcalero, and partly because I bought one of his liters.  As we were doing all of this drinking in the dusky room, I also noticed that we were sitting in a tinder keg.  The room was packed with fireworks…and they’re about to get lit so lets go!

We left town around 11pm. Spent, full, and wonderfully content.  We didn’t get the opportunity to visit our palenque as planned, but what had transpired was even better and unplannable: a racous day filled with color and mezcals and friendly people.  My only sorrow was that we now had 2.5 hours of driving to get to Oaxaca and our hotel, and that our road trip was ending.

We tasted:  

Papalome

Papalometl

Espadilla

Ticuchi

Espadin

Pictures:
Amando Alvarez
Getting sprayed at the parade
Victor Munoz
Firworks room
Drunk Devils
Cucharillo wreaths
Fireworks dancing

Eating at Campo in Albuquerque tonight. Here’s the list 🤯

After leaving Noel’s palenque, we made a long late night drive to the tiny town of Tepelmeme Villa de Morelos, in the La Mixteca region of NW Oaxaca.  A tiny town of just 400 people, it had no mezcal production or touristic things to attract us other than a small motel, where we thought we’d reserved rooms. Unfortunately, our 1am arrival found the hotel to be out of business and boarded up  Fortunately, we located a second small place that appeared to be in business, and after some prolonged knocking at the door, a host appeared and rented us rooms.

I was assigned room #14, but repeated attempts to open the door failed. Thinking I might have misunderstood in my mezcal fogged brain, I tried #15 next door and voila, it opened!  The room was spartan at best; just a bottom sheet on the bed, and no towels. But there was a laundry room next door and I grabbed some towels and a blanket and we passed out.  In the morning, I took a cold shower with no soap.  It was only when we went to return the key and the host looked at mere in shock when I told her I’d slept in #15 that I learned  I WAS supposed to have been able to sleep in #14, but the door had jammed.  The room I’d managed to get into wasn’t in use, hence the lack of sheets/towels/soap.  We laughed it off , had a great simple breakfast at a small place next door that featured rare wheat based tortillas and then headed out for our final day…where nothing went as planned. Maybe the night had been forshadowing?

So nothing went as planned and it couldn’t have been better. (Or more appropriate, as in my experience, virtually any day of a planned palenque visits may include some unanticipated change or surprise.  Learn to embrace them and you’ll usually be glad you did. Try to fight them and you’ll usually fail. I’ve suffered disappointments like a mezcalero contacting me the morning of a visit to apologize and say something has come up. Or driving 3 hours only to then be told that they don’t have any mezcal left to sell and only two to try a copita of.But I’ve also arrived at palenques to be included in unexpected  and wonderful invitations to join a quinceanera or taapada de horno celebrations. You just have to go with it.).

Our first planned stop for the day at the home of mezcalero Cornelio Correa. He’s not somebody I’ve ever heard of and likely neither have you.  His mezcal has never been exported or labeled.  Like many in this region, he is a man who makes mezcal as a part of his cultural identity and to supplement his income, as opposed to one who makes their living producing mezcal. And unfortunately, for this reason, we arrived to find him gone for the day dealing with an unexpected agricultural issue. But fortunately, his wife and kids were home and she happily invited us to make ourselves comfortable in the yard where we tasted some of Cornelio’s mezcals. He roasts in the smallest horno I’ve ever seen, makes only a couple of hundred liters per year using local wild agaves, and likes them strong.  She only had two to offer, a papalometl and an espadilla. Both ran 52%, and both were excellent.  So while our visti was brief, it was fruitful. We thanked her for her time, gifted the kids some kites and coloring books, and headed on towards our final stop in Santa Maria Ixcatlán for more misadventures.

Mezcals tasted:
Espadilla and Papalometl, both at 52%.
Copper still

Photos:
The copper still during off season.
Beautiful hills and barren dirt roads.
Mrs. Correla
The smallest horno I've ever seen
New farming tools, provided by the Mexican government.
More lost roads but were not lost.

My wife and I spent our honeymoon last year in Mexico, and I bought a bottle of Mezcal at the Diego Rivera Anahuacalli Museum. I know adding the scorpion to a bottle of Mezcal is considered a gimmick in this community, but it was a fun bottle to buy and now we have a magical remembrance of that day.

¡Dixeebe!

Mezonte - Raicilla Japo
mezcalero: Hildegardo Joya
location: Cabo Corrientes,Jalisco
Lote: 3
Batch size: 300L
Year: 2019
maguey: amarillo (a. rhodacantha)
Grind: mazo de madera
oven: horno baja tierra
water: dr manantial
Distillation: copper alambique with internal condenser, filipino still in tree trunk

nose: honeysuckle, slightly lactic, yogurt
palate: sweet, tiny hickory smoke, a little funk but not much, green bell pepper

RIP Japo. He passed away at age 92. What a wonderful spirit. I am sorry I wasnt able to meet him. 

Leaving Melecio Meza’s, we drive back down the bumpy riverbed, then hit pavement as we enter the center of the village of Coatepec. Omar pulls up to a little shop and a woman comes out to greet us. They have a brief exchange,  then she hands  him a large basket and he waves her goodbye and returns to the car. “What’s this?” I ask. “Es la comida” he replies. The woman was Maria Elissa, the wife of Maestro Noel Negrellos. She has prepared dinner for us, which we are going to transport up to the palanque where Noel is. She’s going to close up shop and then join us shortly for dinner.

So up the hill we go. It’s a blessedly short drive on a smooth road, which is appreciated after the long mornings. Noel greets us as we arrive at the palenque . Wow, what a view. One of the most beautiful settings of the thirty or so palenques we’ve visited. We take a tour as Noel describes his process and history in the area. I pay attention, but I also keep getting distracted by the magnificent view of the mountains that loom across from us. They are dotted with beautiful giant agaves, the sun is setting, and it’s just spectacular.

Dona Maria soon arrives, as does an adult son on his motorcycle. We all sit down for a dinner of beef soup with squash, and  once again, it’s fantastic. At every stop we’ve made this trip we’ve been indulged with incredibly delicious meals. Everyone of them as good or better as any restaurant I can think of in the city of Oaxaca. A real treat.  Afterwards, we sample our way through Noel’s mezcals. 

He distills in copper, on a still which someone has enscribed with “Perdimos Los Dos”; a popular old song by Pedro Infante.  Using spring and well water interchangeably; he explains that it’s a seasonal decision. His well is only 3 meters deep, so in the dry season it often runs dry and he must pump from a spring far away. But in the water seasons, what his own water is available on site he uses that. He typically proofs his mezcals at about 50%.

The very first copita he offers us is a new agave to me. (Which, in fact is a big part of the reason we went on this adventure. We wanted to delve into Puebla and Mixteca agave’s and blends that are new to us and we’ve absolutely succeeded in that regard.). Noel describes this distillation as.Candellillo, a karwinski agave. We take a walk so we can see one while enjoying the exceptional mezcal it makes. We move on and sample other creations. A papalomete that has clean and bright flavors. A Jabali with a beautiful minty finish and a viscous/syrupy mouth feel. I complement Noel on such and he suggests that it might have that feel because this is a triple distilled Mezcal.

Next comes a Tobola. Noel confesses that he is not sure he’s proud of this creation. He rarely works with this agave and in fact doesn’t grow any himself. He bought this batch of agaves from a friend and distilled it. But he’s not sure he’s happy with the results and proposes that it might be because he’s just not familiar with it, those plants don’t grow where he lives. We then discover that the friend was Melicio, and that the agaves were grown a scant 5 miles away! Such is the regionality of these areas, that Noel considers that "not from around here".

We sample several more are once again all  are great quality. I bought some of each. And then, as we are leaving and saying good-byes, a beautiful thing happened between my wife (who speaks virtually no Spanish _and Maria Alicia (who had no English). But somehow those two had felt a connection throughout the visit, sodwhen the they came together for a good night, hug, they grabbed onto each other like friends who’d known each other since birth, and hugged tightly for literally a minute. Not a word spoken. As we drove away, I asked my what was going on and she said they’d felt a connection but couldn’t communicate until that moment with anything except their eyes. So that hug had said it all. It was a lovely finish to a great day. But yeah, it was time to hit the road. Already approaching 9 o’clock and we still have a three hour drive to reach our nights resting place, the small town of Tepelmeme.

We tried:
Candelillo @ 50%
Rabu de Leon @ 50%
Papalometl@ 50%

Tobala @ 50%
Pichomel @ 50%

Espadilla @ 50%

Pictures:
Noel

Candelillo
Palenque View
Perdimo Still

Curious if anybody thinks there's a difference between the Mal Bien Sonido papalote vs. the Cinco Sentidos Sonido papalote... I've had the M.B. and I was not blown away but it's not bad...

A $34+/- difference where I am...

Mal Bien $86

C.S. $120

I haven’t tried every producer in Logoche, but I did notice my favorite bottles are from Manuel. Also, I have extra bottles if anyone is interested. DM me.