The Art of Making Mezcal

Productores Unidos de Agave Tochimiltzingo in San Diego de la Mesa, Puebla

All photos by Joseph Sorrentino

I first tasted mezcal during my second trip to Oaxaca way back in 1999. Until then, I only knew about tequila and am glad I discovered mezcal, which is my drink of choice now.

Braulio Garcia Lezama is patiently trying to explain how a maestro mezcalero—a mezcal master—knows when the heart of an agave, called a piña, is ready to be cut and used to make mezcal. “The shape of the piña changes when it is ready,” he said. “One needs to look. It takes 2 to 3 seasons (years) for a person to learn when they are ready.”

I mention that some piñas are small, maybe 10 pounds, while others easily top 100 pounds. “It is the maturation, not the size,” he continued. “The size does not matter. A maestro can tell from 100 meters that piñas are ready.” When it’s clear that no amount of explaining can make me understand, he simply says, “One just knows.”  

San Diego de la Mesa Tochimiltzingo, where Lezama lives, is a small pueblo tucked into the Sierra Mixteca, a mountain range shared by Puebla and Oaxaca. He’s a maestro who’s been making mezcal for forty years and is the head of the co-op Productores Unidos de Agave Tochimiltzingo. Virtually everyone in the pueblo’s involved with making mezcal, something that’s an arduous task.

Juice from agave (also called maguey) has been used to make pulque, a slightly alcoholic drink, for almost 2,000 years; Los Bebedores, an 1,800 year old mural in Cholula, Puebla depicts people drinking pulque. Pulque is a fermented drink and was used during celebrations and in religious ceremonies. Mezcal, made from the same plant, is made by distilling the juice, which increases its alcohol content. There’s some debate as to whether the Aztecs, and other indigenous groups, distilled the juice and it’s generally accepted that distillation was introduced by the Spanish, who had been distilling liquors since some time in the eighth century. While the exact date when the process was begun in Mexico may be uncertain, mezcal is known to be the first distilled liquor made in the Americas.

Mezcal is supposed to only be made in one of nine states, Durango, Guerrero, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Oaxaca, Puebla, San Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas, but this regulation isn’t always followed.

San Diego de la Mesa, which is in Puebla, didn’t start mezcal production until sometime in the 19^th century. “Some people think it was first made in 1864,” said Silvistre Reyes, a mezcalero. Lezama put it this way, “I learned from my father, who learned from his father, who learned from his. After that, who knows?”

While tequila can only be made from blue agave, mezcal can be made from many different types. “There are four types of agave used in San Diego de la Mesa,” said Lezama. “But Papalometl Tobolo and Espadín Angustifolia are considered best for mezcal because they are sweeter. Here, Papalometl is considered the best.” Papalometl has small piñas and large, broad leaves while Espadín has large piñas and narrow, tall leaves.

It takes an agave plant six to ten years to mature. Once it is, and once a maestro determines that the piñas are ready, they’re harvested weekly from December to June in San Diego de la Mesa. “Older maguey are sweeter, smaller ones much less sweet,” said Reyes. “Different soils and different magueys yield different flavors.”  

Inside a small concrete building, volcanic rocks that have been placed on blazing firewood have been heating for hours. Mezcaleros call this el horno—the oven.  “I cannot say what the temperature is,” said Lezama. “We look at the flame. It must be between yellow and blue, then it is ready. One maestro may say, ‘Not yet,’ another, ‘It is ready.’ When everyone agrees, it is ready.” Once that happens, the piñas are stacked around them.  

The mound is first covered with palm mats and then dirt. When that’s done, a young man climbs atop the pile and is handed buckets of water which he slowly pours through a hole in the top. Steam envelopes him. When he’s done, he’s handed a small wooden cross which he uses to plug the hole. “The cross is put on the top to show our belief in God,” said Lezama. “To give thanks for the harvest of agave.”  

Piñas are cooked for four days, a step that gives the mezcal its intense, smokey flavor, and then left to cool for a day. When cooked, the piñas turn a dark brown and the air is filled with the smell of burnt sugar.

The pile is dismantled—the piñas are tossed through the air to waiting young men—and collected in wheelbarrows. They’re chopped into small pieces which are placed in large wooden tubs.

“Wood is better than plastic,” said Lezama. “It gives the mezcal a better flavor. We use either pine or oak.” Each tub contains about a ton of maguey hearts and will yield about 80 liters of mezcal. Water, which is snow melt from Popocatepetl that has been collected in a large, deep well, is added. “Agave and water,” said Reyes. “Nothing more.” Large rocks placed on top—this is called a tepacite—weigh down the mixture and its left to ferment for about a week.    

A maestro determines when the fermented liquid is ready to be distilled. A small amount of the liquid, which is dark brown at this stage, is removed with a thin tube and poured into a cup. A maestro will sip some, spit it out and be able to tell if it is ready. “A maestro looks for the flavor,” said Lezama. “It must be sweet and bitter. Sour is no good.”

Mezcal, like tequila, is distilled twice. The fermented liquid first is placed in a large alambique—a still—and heated. The vapor goes up a pipe, cools and is collected, drop by drop, in plastic containers. A smaller alambique is used for the second distillation. To check for the quality, a maestro uses a long tube to take a sample of the distillate. He’ll pour that into a small wooden cup and study the bubbles, which they call perlas—pearls. “We check the perlas to know when it is ready,” said Lezama. When it is, the mezcal can finally be bottled.

Most mezcal in San Diego de la Mesa is white, ie, not aged, although a three-year old (añejo) is sometimes available. It’s strong, 75 to 100 proof (or more), and it’s best sipped slowly and in moderation, although all of the mezcal drinkers I spoke with assured me that drinking mezcal, even to excess, doesn’t cause hangovers (crudas in Mexico). “It is drinking it with other alcohol like beer or rum that causes a cruda,” one man told me. I’m not so sure but I will say that there have been times when I’ve drunk more mezcal than I probably should have and not felt hungover the next day. But I think this theory needs more testing.

Mezcal production, like most artisanal processes in Mexico, is more art than science, dependent on knowledge handed down through generations. Every step is done under the direction of a maestro. “It takes at least ten years to become a maestro,” said Lezama. “One has to know everything, from planting, when an agave is mature, the entire process through distillation. A person starts with something simple, like planting, chopping. Much later, they will learn about el horno and fermentation. These two are the most difficult.”

There’s no test that determines when a person’s ready to be called a maestro. “One is a maestro,” Lezama explained, “when one does not have to ask questions.”   

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