Tequila & Mezcal Profile: The Complete Guide

The Mezcal Guide

The name stems from the word mexcall (“oven cooked”), which is appropriate given that its production process is a key difference between it and tequila. Mezcal varies in batch size like anything else, but more often than not, small families produce mezcal in family-kept palenques, sticking to traditional methods of distillation. Most of these aren’t interested in making huge profits or becoming a global brand, but are more concerned with making mezcal as a hobby, something to share with family, friends, and neighbors. A piece of where they’re from. The Mezcal Guide is one of the best comprehensive resources for mezcal lovers.

Cooking

Agave hearts are cooked in a horno, a pit in the ground that acts as an oven. The agave is either put directly onto a bed of smoldering coals, or the coals are covered with bagaso, the fibrous parts of the agave plant, creating a barrier between the coals and the agave hearts. When the agave is added, it’s covered with more bagaso and a thick layer of dirt, effectively creating an earthen convection oven, where the agave will cook for three to five days. This is where the intense smoky flavor tequila comes from. After cooking, the roasted agave hearts are then unearthed and left to sit in the open air for about a week. This allows natural bacteria to form in, on, and around the agave, starting the early stages of fermentation.

Distilling

The entire contents of the barrel – the smashed agave hearts and the water they were soaking in – is dumped into ovens, where it’s all heated into an initial kind of liquor called ordinario. A second round of distillation gives us mezcal such as the El Silencio Mezcal Espadin. A mezcal distillate bears us the heads, tails, and corazon (heart), which is three layers of distilled alcohol. The heart is separated from the rest, as the head and tail of the distillation process extract impurities. The heart is what makes mezcal. Water is sometimes added to the heart, to balance out the ABV.

In traditional practice, to monitor the spirits potency, the distilled product is dropped into a small gourd called a jicara and the master distiller watches for cordon de perlas (string of pearls) around the edge of the jicara, which should last as long as possible. Finally, this magnificently deliberate creation is done, poured into little clay copitos and the fruits of the laborious process are enjoyed.

Fermenting

After that, the hearts get tossed in another circular pit, where a massive stone wheel (tahona) is pulled around by a donkey or ox, smashing the agave. The pulverized hearts are put into barrels and mixed with water, then left again to ferment in the open air. That’s right: unlike something like whiskey, the barrels aren’t sealed. That’s because the tradition mezcal profile and craft is hugely associated with where it comes from. It was explained to me in a simple, but powerful moniker: people, place, and plant. Open-air fermentation brings elements of the specific region – airborne wild yeast, naturally-occurring bacteria, dust, aromas, and more – into play, bringing an element of terroir into the mix just like in wine production.

The Tequila Guide

The first tequila distillery was established in the town of Jalisco in 1596. In 1666, the King of Spain granted a license to Juan Jose Cuervo, making him the first commercial producer of tequila. Tequila is typically made in one of three styles – blanco (white), reposado (aged), and añejo (aged). It can be consumed straight or used in cocktails such as the Margarita, Sangrita, and Tequila Sunrise. Blanco, or white tequila, is the purest form of the spirit and is typically unaged. Reposado, or rested, tequila is aged for two to 12 months in oak barrels. Añejo, or aged, tequila is aged for one to three years in oak barrels. Tequila is made from the agave plant, which is native to Mexico and is now easily available for an alcohol delivery. The country is home to more than 200 species of agave, but only one – the blue agave – is used to make tequila.

If you’re looking to learn more about this popular Mexican spirit, then read on for a comprehensive guide to tequila!

During WWII, European spirits were tied up across the pond and America got thirsty. This began the tequila boom, which became even more widespread with the later rise of Mexican film. We’ve been enjoying the stuff ever since – in fact, it became so popular, that there was a massive agave shortage in the 1990s. And while most mezcaleros to this day are content making small quantities of their precious mezcal, it’s not too difficult to find in the States and has earned a respected place in the American drinking world.

It comes from Tequila, Jalisco, and similar to how real Champagne can only be produced in the Champagne region of France, tequila can only be produced in the state of Jalisco and limited regions of four other Mexican states. And while Mezcal can come from a variety of different agave variations, tequila must be made from one particular variant: blue agave (Agave Tequilana Weber Azul). Keep a sharp eye when you’re buying it from liquor online store. Look for “100% Agave” slapped across the label. Mixto tequila has to–by law–at least be derived of 51% blue agave sugars, the other 49% are non-agave additives. Unlike tequila, mezcal can be made from a variety of different agave strains, but still has a mixto. It’s required to be derived of at least 80% agave. As a good rule, 100% agave is what you’re keeping your eyes open for.

Cooking

This is where tequila and mezcal production process part ways. Instead of the earthen pit oven, for tequila, the agave hearts are cooked in one of three ways:

Stone oven

The traditional method. It’s simple: steam powered heat in a big stone container.

Autoclave

This is basically just a newer, more high-tech, slightly more efficient version of the stone oven.

Diffuser

A lot of controversy surrounds this technology. The diffuser takes uncooked agave and, with high-pressure hot water and chemicals and flavor additives, produces tequila with rapid efficiency but perhaps less depth of flavor. There’s a lot of arguing about this in the tequila world, but the general gist is that stone oven produces the best tequila, followed by autoclave, followed by diffuser.

Fermenting

The cooked and crushed agave ferments in the open air in massive wooden or steel barrels as big as 100,000 liters (sometimes clay and cement), the process of which takes anywhere from 3-12 days. Thank the goddess you’ll be spared the scientific details of fermentation, but in a nutshell, fermentation happens slower when it’s cold, faster when it’s warm. Too cold, it’ll take forever. Too warm, the yeast will die (they do produce their own heat). When it’s done, you have a kind of pulpy juice (wort) that’s about 4-7% alcohol. The agave pieces get filtered out and the juice goes into distillation.

Distilling

Similar to mezcal, the first distillation is called ordinario and the second distillation is called tequila. It’s done twice to really weed out the undesirable elements from the final product, called “cutting heads and tails”. What the means is that in the ordinario, the top-most part (heads) and the bottom part (tails) are generally discarded, and the middle part (corazon) is kept to distill a second time to bring a beautiful finished product. Fun fact: it takes 15 pounds of agave to get to one liter of tequila at this step.

Finally, there’s the aging – or not. Ever had a blanco tequila like Casamigos Blanco? It’s generally unaged, bottled straight from the distillation process. It can be aged in oak barrels for less than two months to enhance the flavor, but any more and you’ve got reposado tequila, meaning “rested” — a popular reposado being Casamigos Reposado. Reposados have been aged at least two months, but less than one year. And then there’s añejo tequila — Casamigos Anejo— which has been sealed in oak barrels for at least one year. Longer aging imparts woody, smoky, earthy oak flavors and smooths out the natural bite of agave, but all three types are wonderful.