A  mi parecer ese es el caso del cacao mexicano,  si bien todos hemos comido y disfrutado de algún tipo de chocolate, conozco a muy poca gente que me pueda hablar de regiones, variedades o productores específicos. 

En esta conversación con Karina Archundia, reina indiscutible del cacao en la gran ciudad de México, hablamos de pinole, chocolate, policultivos y varias otras cosas bellas.

En este episodio con Alan Schubert y Enrique Cesard  nos acercamos a la muy improbable historia de los vinos del Norte, específicamente a la de aquellos producidos en Nuevo León. Si no ha tenido el gusto de probarlo, recomiendo ampliamente pedirse una botella de Pecho Tierra, y si ya lo probaron, pues aquí está la historia completa del como, donde y porqué.

They were able to create more deliciousness and more complexity hand in hand with the territory they worked.  The land was loved and it loved us back. Somehow, just very recently,  this relationship was broken. And now it seems we've decided to abuse the land and the environments we live in rather than work with them.

In this second episode with Sophia Trapp, we explore how agave and mezcal production could possibly offer some answers to how we can love our land once again. I hope you enjoy it.

 Hace ya unos meses tuve la oportunidad de sentarme con Santos (recién reconocido como El Bartender Promesa por MXBEST y uno de los fundadores de este bar), a compartir y contarnos sobre la amplitud de este proyecto que se agarra de la historia pero gusta de jugar. Espero disfruten esta conversación y que se den una vuelta para probar su larga oferta de menjurges deliciosos.

Big shout-out to Fernanda Arrillaga, from Casa Sotol, for hosting us and letting us record at her beautiful house in Saltillo.

And huge thanks to Alan and the whole team at Pechotierra for taking us to Jorge Luis Torres Casas vinata to get a proper education on Nuevo León spirits and for allowing us to catch the lovely picture featured in this episode.

Cheers y feliz día de muertos y todos santos. 

Para esta nueva realidad paralela bilingüe del podcast, quise empezar con un episodio que resolvió muchas de las dudas que llevaba cargando desde hace tiempo. El sotol, o los sotoles, o los dasylirion, para ser más específico, son algo que me emociona y me intimida. No solamente los sabores me son difíciles de descifrar, sino todo lo que los  rodea. Desde su identidad genética  hasta las muchas maneras de procesarlo. 

Por suerte  tuve la oportunidad de entrevistar a Samuel Ruíz, director de operaciones en Casa Endémica y probablemente una de las personas que mejor entiende a esta planta que se llama sotol en el norte pero que se toma como cucharilla en el sur. 

Este episodio fue grabado en las instalaciones de Casa Endémica en Zapopán, Jalisco. 

La música, la ingeniería de audio, y los videos que ahora pueden encontrar en Youtube, están a cargo de Roy Sierra.

Tomen sotol y bailen pegadito. Bonito fin de semana. 

Yet, there are companies paying millions of dollars to develop and protect specific formulations. People go crazy about securing a reservation at the most celebrated restaurants in the world, and many of our memories are forever linked to particular foods and drinks. 

But who are these people choosing and finding the flavours that we might celebrate in a few decades? Where and what are they looking for?

A few weeks ago, I met Max at Grieta, a coffee bar, that is also a congal, if you know what that means. We started talking about coffee, cacao, and obviously alcohol. Very quickly, it was clear to me that he is one of those people searching for what we may  call delicious in the near future.,  

Please welcome Max Brooker, and his intense love for motorcycles and the Mexican mountain ranges. 

While there are very sophisticated studies dedicated to better understanding this piece of technology, its basis has remained mostly unchanged. In this conversation with Cal Larson we explore the potential of soluble oak and how this approach may get us closer to more sustainable booze.  

To promote the right environment where curiosity can bloom, the person handing these spirits has to be gentle and firm. Capable of sharing mezcal directly from the heart.

Please welcome Miryam Sierra, and her intense passion for expanding mezcal's reach. 

The Casa Agave project checks all of these boxes and more. They plant and harvest their agaves using regenerative techniques to supercharge the Cañada de la Virgen bioreserve; bottle a one-punch-knock-out spirit called Atzin made in conjunction by two of my favorite Mexican distillers (Germán Gonzalez and Daniel Navarro); and released Mata de Monte, a 29 ABV "vino de mezcal", that has become my favorite party trick.

 I could go on and on, but I rather let this conversation with Sophia Trapp, Casa Agave's CEO, be the one to tell you the full story. Hope you enjoy it! #casagave #agavespirits #tequila #mezcal #guanajuato

So, I am always hunting for minds that understand agave and dasylirion spirits in atypical, enriching ways. The minds that offer me conversations that I haven’t yet had. And Cesar García embodies exactly that: an engineer by trade with a curious and precise eye that made me rethink the current policies that may be preventing mezcal from reaching its full potential. 

If you are interested in Cesar’s projects in the US, you can find his spirits under the Puntiagudo brand, distributed by Rocksteady Spirits. If you feel like having a great time in Oaxaca or Puebla, I recommend you visit any of the producers he works with. They make some of the best spirits I’ve tried in a good while. 

Happy semana santa y nos vemos al rato. 

In this podcast I believe we've explored in great depth agave and yeast, but we had only superficially touched on water. There are plenty of themes to explore within this realm, but given the times we live in, I thought that exploring reasonable ways of using this vital resource was a good place to start. Mezcal, some would say, is not a basic necessity. So, is it ethical to dedicate precious water to mezcal when that same liquid could be used to grow food or mitigate fires? Is there a way to build a distillery that nourishes its surroundings instead of damaging the environment?

We don't claim to have all the answers, but we do have some ideas. Please welcome Miguel Albarrán, from Cara a Cara Mezcal, and his simple yet powerful insights about water. 

Sharing drinks at a bar, at least for me, is one of those things.  Many people in other places socialize or party differently. But in the West, cheering over cocktails,  beers, or mezcalitos, if you are lucky, is the norm.

In this conversation with Kraig Rovensky we explore the many ways in which the spirits industry, and the places where we party and socialize, are changing. And we speculate on how they may look once we recognize that drinking ethanol is not the only way to play with our moods and vibes.

If you want to learn more about Fabiola’s work you can find her on Instagram  as @mi.oaxaca or on the internet as mioaxaca.org. 

If you feel like exploring a vast number of agave and dasylirion spirits do consider booking a tasting in Salon de Agave. You’ll surely have a blast nerding with Sofía and Megs. And to fill that belly after copious amounts of spirits there are some chicken soups really close called Ricos Caldos de Gallina Don Luis, that will get you back in shape to keep on partying. 

Feliz Navidad y nos vamos al rato. 

That answer belongs to a longer, more convoluted discussion, but for now, let’s start exploring methanol from a medical standpoint, which involves the vast wisdom of Mr. Ryan Aycock.

Let’s dive in!

- Why can’t you just shut up and have fun! - 

I’ve been shouted at many, many times. 

That is why I find tremendous joy in the little but great community of mezcal and sotol enthusiasts that I’ve encountered in Mexico City. It is a tiny one, but with these gentle souls I get to talk about cities that most people have never visited and I get to refresh my memory and re-spark my curiosity about things that I missed when I visited this or that producer. 

In this conversation with Megs Miller, mastermind behind Salon de Agave in Mexico City, we try to go through all our memories connected to Chihuahua and beautiful spirits we found there. 

I hope you enjoy this one!

That being said, this episode covers a lot of ground, but was originally inspired by a petition published in Change Org by Pepe Tequilas titled: “Highlighting the Importance of Protecting Agave’s Biocultural Heritage”. 

I prefer not to throw any major spoilers in this introduction, but let's just say that both Eric and I would love for agave spirits' beauty to prevail for at least another thousand years. 

Zury started bottling bottling Pox back in 2011 under the umbrella of "Siglo Cero". When even mezcal was just starting to happen, he decided to dedicate his life to corn, panela and wheat instead of worshipping agave. In this episode we try to cover as much as we can about this fascinating and delicious drink. Hope you enjoy it!

This episode was recorded at Som, Zury's bar in Mexico City. Nested in the heart of Condesa I can't emphasize enough how fun is to go through all their menu. You'll get to try Pox, rum, raicilla, mezcal, tequila and many other bizarre and lovely Mexican spirits. 

The technical specifics of how Titanium Dioxide nanoparticles can neutralize vinasse is not really the main focus of this episode, but we decided to delve into what would happen if this approach were to be adopted by the industry at large. What would all that Titanium Dioxide could possibly mean to the health of those applying it to the vinasse or those in the vicinity of the distilleries?  It all may sound very sci-fi and complicated, but this conversation tries to show that every decision has repercussions that may not be incredibly evident right away and that fighting one type of pollution may create other challenges.  

Finally, this is the full citation of the article mentioned in the episode:

Alicia Rodriguez Arreola, Marciano Sanchez Tizapa, Florentina Zurita, Juan Pablo Morán-Lázaro, Rocío Castañeda Valderrama, José Luis Rodríguez-López & Alejandra Carreon-Alvarez (2018) Treatment of tequila vinasse and elimination of phenol by coagulation–flocculation process coupled with heterogeneous photocatalysis using titanium dioxide nanoparticles, Environmental Technology. 

I am sure that the term has been confined to music because if someone were to create the "taco popurrí" it would be too much for humanity to withstand.  

But jokes aside, this episode is exactly that, a "Popurrí" . 

Fabio Raya, one of my favorite scientists on earth,  was in town and we decided to talk all things  agave in one shot while we were sipping gorgeous pulque.  

I hope you enjoy this one. 

A perfectly ripe zapote, a prime "lechón", a fresh habanero salsa and my always beloved pulque. 

In this episode with Cesar Ojeda, aka @intergalacticyeastieboy,  we talk about some of his most recent experiments  regarding pulque fermentation, we touch a bit on social justice and we do laugh quite a bit. 

Welcome to Heritage Mezcal, I hope you enjoy this one.

I still remember the first time I tried and I was so confused.I just didn't know that an agave could create that specific set of flavors and aromasBut most importantly I couldn't imagine the kind of landscape that could foster such an unique agave.

To better understand this convoluted story please welcome Sergio Garnier, patrón at Ultramundo Mezacal, and his tremendous love for the dessert.

If you want to buy the puntas box, that includes the lovely lamparillo puntas, head to MagueyMelate.com and find the "Heritage Mezcal Box" in its shop. Available starting June 10th. 

Using this term he was referring to the many families that recognized in pulque a profitable industry that fueled both exceptional festivities and everyday work.

But now pulque is almost a rarity in Mexico City, and the once buoyant business is  an almost extinct tradition. I had the chance to talk with Martina Manterola, whose family was part of such aristocracy, exploring her memories, interests and frustrations around this wonderful agave ferment.  

Hope you enjoy this one.

And even though I am always the first to complain when I can't find delicious complex spirits in the middle of the night. I am starting to understand that calibrating which booze is served on a dancefloor is a important as the stage and lights design.

Without further adieu, please welcome Roberto Ávila, and his many insights on  how to create accurate booze experiences.

But regardless of how you started, nobody, to my understanding, has found a perfect formula to maintain exceptional quality while still paying the bills.

Without further adieu please welcome Sergio Garnier, from Ultramundo Mezcal,  and his rather atypical approach to owning a mezcal brand.

Some agaves were chosen to make rope, others to extract pulque and maybe the luckiest of them all to create mezcal. 

But there've been many other more subtle ways in which people have chosen their favorite agaves to deal with. In this conversation with Fabio Raya we talk about the agaves that were favored in Brazil versus those that we decided to love in Mexico.

Without further adieu please welcome Dalton Kreiss and his impressive affection for dogs.

This episode is about trying to better understand some of the people in the tequila, mezcal  and agave spirits multiverse that I would say have a very clear and unmovable set of ideas of how these categories should behave. 

So I decided to do an episode, with my  good friend Jon Darby. I've referred to him before as one of the worst purists in the business, but he knows I say with affection.

Without further adieu please welcome Jon and his intense and tender love for mezcalito.

Octavio Paz, our literature nobel prize,  explores this intensively in his famous book "The Labyrinth of Solitude". 

He talks about "Ningunear", which is the act of making someone, no one. 

We've done this to so many Mexican products. but a group that I believe has been  ninguneado like no other, are the thousands of traditional herbs that are still used today   for making delicious infusions. 

Without further adieu please welcome Monica Favila, and her love for all glorious herbs and teas.

We always allocates the unexpected crevices, he finds ways of expanding what may seem bland and inoffensive.

He may even be a spy, considering his very  avid interest on maps, borders and the rivers that run through them. 

But the most important thing, is that he is a rather entertaining human to share conversations and mezcalitos. 

Without further adieu, please welcome Vinik Jure, and his aggressively eclectic mind. 

Without further adieu please welcome Jose Lopez Ganem and his poignant perspective on how we can  create a slightly better world through cacao.

The most prominent ones are obviously Tequila and Mezcal. But if you travel a bit more you'll find names like Tepe, Ixcateco, Minero, Bacanora, Raicilla and so on and so on.

Tuxca is one of those names. But I find that currently there is a good  amount of misinformation about the origin  and history of such a name. So I decided to  invite Edwin, who is currently  making his doctoral thesis about historical tabernas, to give us a little bit more insights into what Tuxca really means. 

Please welcome Edwin Mayoral,  and his passion for vino de cocos y vino de mezcal.

All of which are linked to how the PDOS, or Protected Designations of Origin, for each one of these products were written.

That is why I decided to invite the man I call the “Cheese Superman” to this podcast. I find cheese to be very relevant to understand this matter because one of the first PDOs, back in 1925, was created to protect Roquefort and fight its counterfeits. According to the Roquefort official website this has allowed for  Roquefort to be serenely modern and more relevant than ever. 

Please welcome Zach Berg and his cheesmongering parlance.

It'll get even worse if you claim that the best Tepextate you've ever had spent 12 years in bourbon barrels  and that the most complex sotol you've ever encountered was pink and shiny  from resting in barrels  previously used to mature red wine. 

Even at the risk of creating some violent confrontations  I wanted to explore the world of aging,  but instead of using the very controversial agave as a study case, I decided to delve into the intricacies of aging sugarcane spirits.

So without further adieu please welcome Keegan Meneses and his  tremendous passion for all things rum.

Now mezcal is a global phenomena, but to be absolutely honest, that is rather surprising. So I've been tracking some of the people that arrived at this scene right when things were starting to change. 

In this episode I was lucky enough to have John McEvoy as an invitee. He was there when nobody could explain what mezcal was at gringo bars, when bottles had hotmail emails stamped on their sides, and even decided to invest in the category when it  was unlikely for mezcal to secure any growth. 

Without further adieu please welcome John, better known as Mezcal PhD. 

Because it is not enough to find a very delicious mezcal. Which is a lot of work already, but you also have to deal with regulations, transportation and all sorts of mysterious things before someone can actually acquire what you've chosen with a lot of love. 

So if you are planning to start an agave spirits brand this may be the episode that could convince you to do otherwise.  You may prefer to just stay as a committed nerd, instead of  having to endure all of the pains that we'll describe in this episode. Without further adieu, welcome joven Dalton and his unparalleled passion for logistics.

A few episodes ago I had a long and illuminating conversation with Eric Kozlik about flavor and I wanted to compare and contrast our discussion from a coffee perspective.

Coffee is an interesting study-case because it is one of the most consumed commodities in the world. So I had always thought that their tasting protocols were rather strict and homogenous.  

Regardless of the medium, be it honey, mezcal, tea or coffee; we are all trying to find and sell the most delicious things possible.  But how exactly do we identify and describe deliciousness? Does it change depending on the country and culture? Is it a static thing? Or maybe it does change depending on who you are and how you perceive yourself.  

Grab some pretty coffee and let's talk about its flavors. 

But it was not until I tried tea in Taiwan that I found an amazing array of flavors connected to the different leaves, processes and ways to prepare it. Tea leaves, just like agave, are great  and ancient storytellers. Not only have humans consumed tea for thousands of years but some of the trees used to make puer   can be more than hundred years old. 

When I met  Mónica Favila, today’s invitee, I was thrilled at the prospect of better understanding this medium and trying some of the delicious expressions that she collects.

It is clear to me that we are at a time that if we don't do something there may be a day when homogeneity will take over. The days of thinking about the possibilities brought by the ample agave diversity will be gone and we'll end up with something as boring as the cavendish banana. 

At the same time there are many ways to resist, to promote change and to make people care deeply about mezcal and the artisans that make it. 

While reading @vinikjure essays I realized that many of them referred to “joyful resistance”, which seemed a way more effective approach than the usual hostility or mockery that I get to see in this industry. This approach does have its limitations, but in this episode I think we do a fairly good job in exploring many of the reasons why working from this framework may allow us to further empower the full mezcal multiverse.

But when we talk about Mexico, what does our national brand stand for?  What is our global reputation? Is our vast biocultural heritage being promoted or are we just being reduced to tequila, tourism and avocados?  

Beyond some ontological drama, is our brand strengthening the overall economy and promoting social equality or is it just making money for a few very visible entities?

I know these are extremely loaded questions but somehow we found a way to make a multitude of jokes around them. Please welcome to the podcast  José López Ganem and his infinite set of academic parables.

Mallort, big shout out to CH distilleries, Chartrouse  and every Amari under the sun, are some of other examples of beloved spirits that have been modified with external elements in some way or another. 

Yet when we talk about mezcal, the idea of using modifiers, with the exception of pechugas, makes most people uncomfortable.  Why the hell will you dilute or interfere with agave's essence, people claim, this plant that took such a long time to grow and which patiently collected information from the soil and its immediate environment should be consumed at its purest form in order to truly honor its origin. 

But then, oh how I love my Mallort and my worm infused mezcales. So I decided to have a conversation trying to get to the bottom of this with one of the industry's worst purists, my friend Jon Darby. 

That is the reason why I've been trying to educate myself, finding the best ways not to destroy my body. But it turns out that there are a multitude of versions of what a non dangerous intake of alcohol means. Canada claims that if you have  3 drinks a week  you are asking for trouble, while Japan is happy to suggest that   half a liter of beer or a glass of sake a day may  not hurt at all.  

In these series of episodes, with Cockatil MD Ryan Aycock, I've been trying to better understand the news articles that come my way. On this episode lets talk about how alcohol may be damaging your DNA.

And for the adventurous here is the Google Maps for "La Jarochita": https://maps.app.goo.gl/XbuNdMsQuVUGqDUX6 

I can't claim that we came up with clear-cut answers to all of these questions. But we definitely tried our best. Please welcome again Cesar Ojeda and his infinite curiosity for all things fermentation. 

Make sure to grab an espresso from Shak at Casa Cardinal:

https://www.instagram.com/casacardinal/

A big shout out to the "Anímate" employee resource group at Crunchyroll for sponsoring this episode.

A big shout to the "Animate" employee resource group at Crunchyroll for sponsoring this episode 😘

Keegan Menezes started out as a cocktail bartender when he was in Oxford at university, although he left his professional cocktail-making career behind he has remained part of the London Cocktail bar scene. He is known for his depth of knowledge across all spirits categories including and his favourite and the best spirit – R(h)um.

He has traveled around the English and French Caribbean, visiting Distilleries; enhancing his personal relationship with the distillers and of course, tasting Rhum/Rum. He uses his knowledge to help bars and London bartenders understand all the different aspects of the Sugarcane spirit category, and how they can be used in Cocktails and as straight-up spirits.

Keegan has consulted with various rum brands on blends, packaging and market strategy.

After a long career as a Business Jerk of All Sorts (TM), Darian Martyniuk realized there were a few things in life that he loved, and two of them were agave spirits and baseball. So one day, he decided to combine the two and another passion, travel, and create a business centered around those things - traveling the world to watch baseball, traveling Mexico to (occasionally over-) indulge and learn about in agave spirits, and eat various parts of (once thriving but now less so) animals wherever he landed. This podcast is the (erratic yet oddly intriguing) partial result of this adventure.

Here is Fabio's profile on his own words. You can find him in LinkedIn as Fabio Raya:

I’m BA in Biotechnology (UFSCar at Araras) and MSc. in Genetics and Molecular Biology (Unicamp). I’ve worked with Next-Generation Sequencing at the Integrated Genomics Cores (HTSF - UNC at Chapel Hill), one of the largest sequencing facilities in the US. 

In 2017, I’ve founded ECRA Biotech, a synthetic biology start-up that develops and manufacture kits for diagnostics and genetic engineering. There, I’ve worked on the development of more than 15 biotechnological products for research and molecular diagnostics, including RNA/DNA extraction kits, DNA polymerases, reverse transcriptases, and other specialties enzymes.

At Unicamp, I’m a Ph.D. candidate, also in Genetics and Molecular Biology, and the curator of the "Germplasm Bank for Climate Change". My research work focuses on Agave, plant biotechnology, plant breeding, bioeconomy, and biorenewables production in semiarid regions.

Dr. Ryan Aycock is a practicing emergency physician in the Panhandle of Florida and holds faculty appointments with both Florida State University's and the University of Central Florida's Colleges of Medicine. He has presented at Tales of the Cocktail and is a frequent guest contributor to the Agave Road Trip podcast. His previous writings have won the American College of Legal Medicine's Hoffman Bioethics Writing Competition. The Florida House of Representatives named him its Doctor of the Day in 2022. An Air Force veteran, he deployed to Southwest Asia and Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom as a Critical Care Air Transport Team's flight commander.

Dr. César Iván Ojeda Linares completed his undergraduate studies at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, later he studied at the Institute of Ecology of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, with a stay at Kyoto Sangyo University. He did his Ph.D. at the Ecosystems and Sustainability Research Institute. He is currently doing a Postdoctoral stay at the UNAM Botanical Garden. His line of research from him is ethnobiology, particularly because he is making a novel proposal within ethnobiology, ethnomycrobiology. In his last years, he has studied how different cultural groups consciously or unconsciously manage microbial communities for the production of fermented beverages, thus identifying possible yeast domestication processes. In the same way, he actively participates in disseminating science, seeking to recapture the importance of fermented foods in the food landscapes of Mexico.

You can find Cesar at @intergalactic_yeastie_boy

Zaloren Gonzalez Fontes is a Citizen of the World a Nomad that has danced her way into the Adventure She calls Life.

Since the year 2003, she embarked on the Agave journey playing the role of educator, brand consultant, project manager, category ambassador, sacrileges spirit sommelier (pairing food with distilled spirits), and Story Teller.

She currently lives in UK creating new avenues of education regarding Mexican Distilled Spirits.

For further information in UK and Europe, you can reach out to her on her personal email zaloren@gmail.com

After a long career as a Business Jerk of All Sorts (TM), Darian Martyniuk realized there were a few things in life that he loved, and two of them were agave spirits and baseball. So one day, he decided to combine the two and another passion, travel, and create a business centered around those things - traveling the world to watch baseball, traveling Mexico to (occasionally over-) indulge and learn about in agave spirits, and eat various parts of (once thriving but now less so) animals wherever he landed. This podcast is the (erratic yet oddly intriguing) partial result of this adventure.

 But really, the most important thing about this episode is that we get a clear, objective explanation behind the complexity offered by agave and how that is perfectly in tune with the artisanal processes used to transform this plant into exceptional spirits. 

Dr. César Iván Ojeda Linares completed his undergraduate studies at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, later he studied at the Institute of Ecology of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, with a stay at Kyoto Sangyo University. He did his Ph.D. at the Ecosystems and Sustainability Research Institute. He is currently doing a Postdoctoral stay at the UNAM Botanical Garden. His line of research from him is ethnobiology, particularly because he is making a novel proposal within ethnobiology, ethnomycrobiology. In his last years, he has studied how different cultural groups consciously or unconsciously manage microbial communities for the production of fermented beverages, thus identifying possible yeast domestication processes. In the same way, he actively participates in disseminating science, seeking to recapture the importance of fermented foods in the food landscapes of Mexico.

You can find Cesar at @intergalactic_yeastie_boy