Can Cooperatives Save Mezcal?

A booming mezcal market, driven by imports to the US, is fueling unsustainable farming and production practices in Mexico. Collective ownership is helping growers protect agave’s genetic diversity, local biodiversity, and mezcal’s ancestral roots.


BY ANNELISE JOLLEY
CIVIL EATS
APRIL 10, 2023

Erika Meneses, director of Aguerrido, stands by a wild agave plant with one of the cooperative’s mezcaleros. (Photo courtesy of Aguerrido)


Erika Meneses never set out to form her own mezcal cooperative. But a series of setbacks—the pandemic, a job loss, and, most devastating, the death of her husband in 2019—pushed her to innovate. Meneses’s husband was a mezcalero, a mezcal producer. Together they worked at the cooperatively owned brand Sanzekan in Guerrero, a state on Mexico’s Pacific coast. After losing her husband and then her source of income in 2020, Meneses decided to take what she had learned at Sanzekan and apply it to her own community of Chilapa in the mountains of Guerrero.

She asked local master mezcaleros, or maestros, if they were interested in producing and selling their mezcal collaboratively. Meneses believed that if they banded together, they could reach larger markets while remaining faithful to ancestral practices. Four maestros joined her.

They named the brand Aguerrido, meaning fierce or valiant. “The cooperative is a warrior that does not give up, that fights, that defends its culture, but above all, defends traditional mezcals,” Meneses says. By “traditional mezcals,” she means agave-distilled spirits that reflect local terroir and are made in small batches according to ancestral methods, rather than mass produced.

“The boom has done a lot of damage. Traditions are being lost in communities.”

The need to distinguish and defend traditional mezcal is a result of the spirit’s explosive global popularity. Over the last decade, Mexico’s mezcal production increased by approximately 700 percent, with the majority designated for international markets. In 2019, the United States surpassed Mexico to become the world’s largest mezcal market. And as with demand for other Mexican crops—such as avocados and corn—the American obsession with mezcal unleashed a host of downstream effects that impact small producers most acutely.

Many brands are no longer producer-owned, Meneses explains, but rather run by businesses with the capital to invest in flashy marketing. Some foreign-owned brands offer to buy mezcal in bulk from small mezcaleros being squeezed from the market, leading to industrialized production methods.

As a result, many mezcaleros turn to unsustainable practices to produce greater volumes in the short term at the expense of their futures. “The boom has done a lot of damage,” says Meneses. “Traditions are being lost in communities.”

Traditional mezcal production is synonymous with sustainability. Producers have historically practiced rotational agave growing, selective harvesting, and small-batch distillation. But when they try to keep up with unsustainable demand, ecological damage follows. As growers across Mexico and as far north as the Western U.S. are realizing, agave opens the door to a lucrative market.

In some cases, communities are deforesting hillsides to make room for monocultures of fast-growing agave. Meanwhile, rare agave species—which can take up to 35 years to mature—are disappearing from the wild. Overharvesting and monocropping both threaten the agave’s genetic diversity and local biodiversity.

Agave plant photo courtesy of Aguerrido.


In the face of these challenges, mezcal cooperatives are designed to protect small producers. At their best, collectively owned and cooperatively operated brands model a future in which mezcaleros can maintain ancestral and ecologically beneficial practices, while still gaining access to an exploding market.

Preserving Ancestral Traditions

Despite her entrepreneurial savvy, Meneses says that Aguerrido’s members “are not businesspeople—we are farming families looking for a market.” The collective’s core members are lifelong mezcaleros, old enough to remember a time when mezcal faced social stigma.

“They were always fighting to continue making mezcal, even though they hid it, even though it was not well paid,” Meneses says. “They feel proud to say, ‘I make a very good mezcal passed down from my grandfather.’” The four maestros—Don Refugio, Don Ciro, Don Tomás and Don Antonio—carry on their families’ traditions in their own techniques, which in turn inform Aguerrido’s ethos.

Each co-op member complies with mutually established growing, harvesting, and production regulations. Because of agave’s long lifespan, some mezcal producers succumb to the temptation of harvesting immature, unripe agave. These plants have lower sugar content, which requires more of them to produce the same volume.

Rather than “looting the hills,” Meneses says, Aguerrido’s members select only mature plants for production. They plant more agave than they harvest, and all replanting is carried out with close attention to the ecosystem as a whole. “That is another agreement, that you must reforest—but without damaging the ecosystem, removing woody trees, or damaging the soil.”

The members of Aguerrido raise their fists as a nod to the cooperative’s logo, symbolizing their desire to raise their voices and fight to preserve their traditions. (Photo courtesy of Aguerrido)

The mezcal production season runs from February to June. Then they turn their attention to cultivating other crops such as corn and squash. Meneses says this choice is part of Aguerrido’s effort to maintain soil health and biodiversity, despite the larger growing trend among producers and growers to monocrop agave. The group’s vision is “to protect our mezcal precisely from people who only seek a particular benefit for themselves.”

And instead of focusing on short-term profit, she says they’re working to produce mezcal as they always have—in small batches with ancestral techniques.

Member-led Sustainable Practices

Bordering Guerrero is the state of Oaxaca, the beating heart of Mexico’s mezcal industry. Oaxaca accounts for 85 percent of mezcal production and is also where mezcal’s ecological impact is most visible. “Communities are becoming like dust bowls because of monoculture of agave,” says Niki Nakazawa, co-founder of Neta Spirits.

But this isn’t the case everywhere. In Logoche, a 110-person village in Oaxaca’s Sierra Sur region, traditional practices still rule the day. Neta Spirits represents the 12-family cooperative Grupo Productor Logoche. Neta purchases from the producers and commercializes the mezcal under the Neta brand. The 12 member families oversee everything else, from planting to distilling to bottling to labeling. An elected committee, appointed by the cooperative, organizes the bottling and labeling process.

Unlike some neighboring communities, producers in the village of Logoche prioritize the long-term health of the land. Members plant their fields with multiple varieties of agave in alternating rows to preserve genetic diversity and insulate the crops from disease and pests. They use the milpa system of rotational planting, which includes crops like corn, beans, and squash to enrich the soil and prevent erosion. Using goat and donkey manure, they prepare natural fertilizers to replenish the fields.

The cooperative also follows the indigenous custom of harvesting agave during the full moon, when they believe the plant’s heart or piña is most concentrated with sugar. Pooling their labor, resources, and profits allows the cooperative to preserve ancestral—and often more labor-intensive—methods.

Community members in the village of Logoche work collectively to roast the agave hearts that will then be crushed and fermented before distillation. 

(Photo courtesy of Aguerrido)

Though much larger, Banhez Mezcal follows similar cultivation practices. A cooperative of 44 families in Ejutla, Oaxaca, Banhez adheres to a member-established code of conduct that focuses on the sustainable management of their agave fields. Its collaborative structure also incentivizes responsible production, including better waste management.

Mezcal’s distillation process produces an acidic liquid waste called viñaza, which can pollute local water sources. Not long ago, one Banhez member built his palenque—distillation site—in a location that impacted local groundwater. When the community realized that viñaza was threatening its water quality, the member took out a loan from Banhez and rebuilt the palenque elsewhere.

“When you look at the brands that are able to maintain environmental ethics, it’s really down to ownership,” says Alex Jandernoa, director of education at Banhez. “In order to move [a palenque], you have to keep producing mezcal. If you’re not part of a cooperative, you can’t move. You don’t have the money; you don’t have the safety net.”

Rooted in Indigenous Values

In some cases, it’s less the cooperative business model and more a community’s cooperatively held values that insulate producers from market pressure. Nakazawa says Grupo Productor Logoche’s collective ethos is rooted primarily in traditional customs. Logoche, like hundreds of Oaxaca’s municipalities, is governed by two systems: the federal government and customary indigenous laws called usos y costumbres. Grupo Productor Logoche’s cooperation, Nakazawa says, “is rooted in older ways of participation.”

In communities governed by customary indigenous law, “people participate directly in the well-being of other members of the community and in the stewardship of the land.” Every village member participates in communal work, called tequio, in lieu of paying taxes at the local level. Because mezcal is Logoche’s main industry, everyone pitches in at some step during production, and pricing is set by community consensus. “The idea of cooperativism and collectivism is really embedded in those forms of political participation,” says Nakazawa.

The Cooperative Potential

From a commercial perspective, Meneses believes that cooperatively owned brands have an advantage in their product diversity. In the case of Aguerrido, each bottle is a unique representation of the local ecosystem, the agave, and the producer’s skill. “[Consumers] can find diversity in expressions from each producer,” she says.

Maestros del Mezcal, a nongovernmental organization representing hundreds of small producers across Mexico, provides financial and technical support to preserve traditional production practices and protect the land from exploitation. Maestros recently launched a collective brand under the label MDM Asociación Civil, exporting its first shipment to the U.S. last year.

Members of Grupo Productor Logoche gather in their cooperatively owned and managed bottling plant. (Photo courtesy of Aguerrido)

“I do think collective brands can help preserve tradition—by pooling fiscal and regulatory resources and providing easier access to the markets, which is much more costly and time consuming for just one person to do,” says co-organizer Rion Toal. He thinks it’s a model that could be applied successfully to other Mexican products for export. In the case of coffee, for example, “if small producers were able to form co-ops and roast their own beans and legally export them, they could make a lot more money per kilo.”

As pressure from foreign demand mounts, Mexico’s mezcal producers face a choice: turn to industrialized methods and damaging cultivation practices for quick economic gain or differentiate by preserving and promoting ancestral methods. The cooperative model makes the latter option easier. Collective ownership helps producers preserve mezcal’s roots, without losing a foothold in the market.

Meneses says that Aguerrido’s cooperative model looks beyond turning a short-term profit and focuses on the community’s future in mezcal production. “The idea is to be aware, to use good practices—not just right now but also for the future, for the new generations.”

In the Age of Megadrought, Farmers in the West See Promise in Agave

Indigenous Agroforestry Dying of Thirst Amid a Sea of Avocados in Mexico

As the US Pressures Mexico to Import GM Corn, Can It Preserve Its Traditional Varieties?

Annelise Jolley is a San Diego-based writer and editor who covers food, farming, travel, and the terrain in between. 

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PSYCHEDELIC BREW

Study reveals science behind traditional mezcal-making technique

BROWN UNIVERSITY

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VIDEO: ARTISANS WHO MAKE MEZCAL, A TRADITIONAL MEXICAN SPIRIT, HAVE KNOWN FOR CENTURIES THAT LONG-LASTING BUBBLES ON THE SURFACE OF THE BEVERAGE IS AN INDICATOR THAT IT HAS BEEN DISTILLED TO... view more 

CREDIT: ZENIT LAB / BROWN UNIVERSITY

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Artisanal makers of mezcal have a tried and true way to tell when the drink has been distilled to the right alcohol level. They squirt some into a small container and look for little bubbles, known as pearls. If the alcohol content is too high or too low, the bubbles burst quickly. But if they linger for 30 seconds or so, the alcohol level is perfect and the mezcal is ready to drink.

Now, a new study by a team of fluid dynamics researchers reveals the physics behind the trick. Using laboratory experiments and computer models, the researchers show that a phenomenon known as the Marangoni effect helps mezcal bubbles linger a little longer when the alcohol content is around the sweet spot of 50%. In addition to showing the scientific underpinnings of something artisans have known for centuries, the researchers say the findings reveal new fundamental details about the lifetimes of bubbles on liquid surfaces.

The study, a collaboration between researchers at Brown University, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Université de Toulouse and elsewhere, was published on July 3 in the journal Scientific Reports.

When Roberto Zenit, a professor in Brown's School of Engineering and the study's senior author, first heard about the bubble trick, he said he was instantly intrigued.

"One of my main research interests is bubbles and how they behave," Zenit said. "So when one of my students told me that bubbles were important in making mezcal, which is a drink that I really enjoy with my friends, it was impossible for me not to investigate how it works."

The researchers started by doing experiments to see how changing the alcohol level of mezcal changed bubble lifetimes. They watered down some samples of mezcal and added pure ethyl alcohol to others. They then reproduced the squirting trick in the lab while carefully timing the bubbles. They found that, sure enough, alcohol level dramatically affected bubble lifetimes. In unaltered samples, bubbles lasted from 10 to 30 seconds. In both the fortified and watered-down samples, the bubbles burst instantly.

Having shown that bubbles really can be a gauge of alcohol content, the next step was to figure out why.

To do that, the Zenit and his students started by simplifying the fluid -- performing experiments with mixtures of just pure water and alcohol. Those experiments showed that, as with mezcal, bubbles tended to last longer when the mixture was near 50% water and 50% alcohol. The researchers determined that the extra bubble life was due largely to viscosity. Bubbles tend to last longer in more viscous fluids, and the viscosity of alcohol-water mixtures peaks right around 50%.

However, the bubbles in the 50-50 water and alcohol mixtures still didn't last as long as those in mezcal. Zenit and his students realized there must be something about mezcal that amplifies the viscosity effect. To figure out what it was, they used high-speed video cameras to carefully watch the bubbles through their lifetimes.

The video revealed something surprising, Zenit said. It showed an upward convection of liquid from the surface of mezcal into the bubble membranes.

"Normally, gravity is causing the liquid in a bubble film to drain away, which eventually causes the bubble to burst," Zenit said. "But in the mezcal bubbles, there's this upward convection that's replenishing the fluid and extending the life of the bubble."

With the help of some computer modeling, the researchers determined that a phenomenon known as the Marangoni convection was responsible for this upward motion. The Marangoni effect occurs when fluids flow between areas of differing surface tension, which is the attractive force between molecules that forms a film surface of a fluid. Mezcal contains a variety of chemicals that act as surfactants -- molecules that change the surface tension. As a result, bubbles that form on the surface of mezcal tend to have higher surface tension than the surfactant-filled fluid below. That differing surface tension draws fluid up into the bubble, increasing its lifespan.

By amplifying the existing tendency for longer-lasting bubbles in 50% alcohol mixtures, the surfactant-driven Marangoni effect makes bubbles a reliable gauge of alcohol content in mezcal.

Zenit, who hails from Mexico, said it was gratifying to shed new light on this artisanal technique.

"It's fun to work on something that has both scientific value and cultural value that's part of my background," he said. "These artisans are experts in what they do. It's great to be able to corroborate what they already know and to demonstrate that it has scientific value beyond just mezcal making."

The insights generated from the work could be useful in a variety of industrial processes that involve bubbles, the researchers said. It could also be useful in environmental research.

"For example," the researchers write, "the lifetime of surface bubbles could be used as a diagnostic tool to infer the presence of surfactants in a liquid: If the lifetime is larger than that expected of a pure/clean liquid, then the liquid is most likely contaminated."

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Why You'll Never Understand Mezcal Like You Understand Scotch

ONE IS A PSYCHOTROPIC HALLUCINOGEN THE OTHER IS JUST ALCOHOL

There's more to the agave spirit than smoke and worm salt.

JEFF GORDINIERMAY 17, 2018


LAURA MURRAY



In the folklore of my family, there is one night that remains legendary. We had traveled to Cancún, the gabachos-in-big-sombreros Mexican resort city that was built on the concept of a never-ending spring break, to celebrate New Year’s Eve with the proper measure of ridiculousness. I don’t remember much about it, but my siblings do. They remember gazing out at a dance floor in a nightclub after midnight and seeing me, then in my early 20s, writhing around in a manner that was perhaps meant to summon the spirit of Quetzalcoatl, the Mesoamerican deity usually depicted as a feathered serpent. My brother and sister could find me in the crowd because I had managed to climb on top of a giant amplifier, which meant that my euphoric contortions were on full display for everyone in the club.



Beverage director Yana Volfson of New York’s Atla and Cosme.
Laura Murray



This Walpurgisnacht of wild abandon was later attributed to a lone culprit: mezcal. I had downed a lot of cheap mezcal that night, although I had no idea what it was. In those days, American tourists still liked to cling to the myth that the “worm” floating around in the bottle would make them hallucinate. (You can’t blame the locals for perpetuating this prank.) By now, of course, U.S. drinkers have graduated from such callow delusions, and this infinitely complex agave spirit, whether stirred into cocktails or sipped on its own, has been treated with the reverence it deserves for more than a decade. In fact, there are so many compelling bottles on store shelves that it’s hard to keep track, and it’s a telling indicator of popular thirst that George Clooney and his billionaire Casamigos comrades have announced their own plans to move into the mezcal marketplace.

If I’m being honest, though, I still can’t pretend to have a grasp on what mezcal is all about. It’s the sort of spirit that has a habit of eluding anyone who tries to pin it down. Which is why I met up with Yana Volfson, the beverage director at Mexican chef Enrique Olvera’s two outposts in New York, Atla and Cosme, for an afternoon agave tutorial. Joining Volfson at Atla was Jorsand Díaz, the head bartender and self-described “mezcal nerd” at both restaurants. And the first thing the two of them stressed to me was that mezcal mastery is even more slippery than an amateur may realize.



It’s a telling indicator of popular thirst that George Clooney and his billionaire Casamigos comrades have announced their own plans to move into the mezcal marketplace.

“We strive so hard for that idea of consistency,” Volfson said. “There’s really no such thing.” Surrender to flux—from bottle to bottle, day to day, she advised. “Mezcal can taste one way one day and taste different the next day. Just like no two chiles are ever going to taste the same.”

“The more passion that I have, the more questions I have,” Díaz added.

But where to begin, if mezcal qualifies as such a moving target? It helps to start off by forgoing stereotypes. Perhaps you’re prone to bluffing your way through a bar order by asking for something “smoky,” which is like saying “funky” in a natural-wine bar or “hoppy” in a craft brewery. Stop. Smoke is not always the most pronounced element in mezcal, nor must it be viewed as the chief virtue.


Pairings with El Jolgorio and Rey Campero mezcals.
Laura Murray

Instead of pairing mezcal with the clichéd worm salt and wedge of citrus, Volfson and Díaz will, at Atla, entice customers with curveball accompaniments that come across as a revelation. I sampled three bottles. Each bloomed on my palate when hitched to an unexpected nibble. The first was an espadín (from the most commonly used agave plant) that mezcalero Joel Barriga had made for Vago; it was “milky” and “buttery,” Volfson said, and she paired it with chocolate-covered espresso beans. Then she described Rómulo Sánchez Parada’s 2015 madre-cuishe, for Rey Campero, as “stemmy,” green-grassy, eucalyptus-tinged; she had me drink that one with slices of smoked salmon. The third portal, Reynaldo Altamirano’s wild-agave tepeztate, for El Jolgorio, brought out the poetry in Volfson. She paired it with blue cheese, declaring that it would take me “far up into the sky and deep, deep into the ocean, in terms of its flavor.”

Wait. Maybe mezcal can make you hallucinate after all. I suppose the trick is to open your mind first. “Walk through one door,” Volfson told me, “and then I’ll open up another door for you.”

This article appears in the May ’18 issue of Esquire.
Alexi Lubomirski

Dog owners tout Xolos' loyalty and sacred underworld history


Tue, February 7, 2023 



MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mezcal is not your ordinary pet. Hundreds of years ago the Latin American Indigenous group, the Nahuas, believed that a hairless dog like him, a Xoloitzcuintle, was a sacred creature who could guide its deceased master through the underworld.

Dozens gathered on a recent day at Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso in Mexico City for a meet-and-greet with Mezcal and three more “Xolos”, as these slender dogs are locally known. The canines were at the art and culture museum as part of an effort to raise awareness about responsible adoption of Xolo puppies and promoting the significance of the breed.

“Can I touch him?” asked a woman working security for the museum, as she nervously brought her hand closer to the dog’s head

“Absolutely! He loves to be petted,” said Mezcal’s owner, Nemiliz Gutiérrez, who leads a project with her sister, promoting the breed to the public.

By reviewing ancient codex and records written after the conquest in 1521, experts have determined the religious relevance of the dogs among Mesoamerican civilizations. That fact isn’t lost on the sisters.

“We are privileged because we have among us some precious jewels of history that are living cultural heritage,” said Gutierrez’s sister, Itzayani, who owns a playful Xolo named Pilón.

Experts found that the Nahuas believed these dogs represented the god, Xólotl, the twin brother of deity Quetzalcóatl. While the latter personified life and light, the former was an effigy of the underworld and death. The Xolo, thought to be a creature capable of moving through the darkness, was conceived as a guide for their owner’s soul after dying, wrote historian Mercedes de la Garza in an article published by the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Burial sites found by archaeologists in central Mexico show the remains of men and dogs lying side by side, which suggests that Xolos may have been sacrificed during their masters’ funeral rites. It was thought to be a way the living could ensure that when the soul of their loved ones reached the river of the underworld, it could reunite with its dog, mount on his back and cross together.

In the Nahuatl language, “Xolo” means “monster”, and though some dislike the physical appearance of these dogs, many find them fascinating. Mezcal’s hairless skin is dark as a shadow. When touched, it feels soft and warm. His teeth are rarely visible, as Xolos don’t bark much. On the recent day, he posed for pictures like a movie star and leaned his head toward visitors wanting to pet him.

Like his predecessors, Mezcal never loses sight of Gutiérrez, who constantly pats her loving dog.

“Xolos are loyal by nature,” said Gutiérrez. “If one is adopted by a family, it will choose a member to stick with.”

The closeness between Xoloitzcuintles and their owners was also noted by the Nahuas, according to experts. To please the gods, some Xolos were sacrificed in order to spare their masters’ lives.

The dogs were killed in those ceremonies by extracting their hearts. This fact distinguished them from any other animal offered in sacrifice, wrote De la Garza.

The dogs also are a part of modern-day culture in Mexico and beyond. At least a couple of Xoloitzcuintles can be seen in Frida Kahlo’s paintings. A few more appear in portraits where the artist posed with her husband, Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Their love for these pets was shared by friend and art collector Dolores Olmedo, whose home in Mexico City became a museum and until recently took care of a few Xolos that visitors could approach.

In 2016, the capital’s mayor gave the Xoloitzcuintle a cultural heritage designation, and a year later, a charming Xolo named Dante reached world fame after his appearance in animated film “Coco”, which portrayed the adventures of a Mexican boy through the underworld.

Back in San Ildefonso, the Gutiérrez sisters hope more people will come to appreciate the breed’s significance and help it thrive. Once thought by experts to be headed toward extinction, Xolos can be spotted in upper class Mexico City neighborhoods. Nemiliz Gutiérrez adopted Mezcal, but said some breeders sell the dogs for upwards of $3,500.

Not every Xolo is in demand though, especially the variety with fur.

“Almost nobody wants them,” said Gutiérrez, who works with her sister to find caring homes for all Xolos regardless of their coats. Through that process, they enjoy sharing about the breed’s historic significance – when Xolos embodied an endless love believed to transcend death.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

María Teresa Hernández, The Associated Press

California has a new take on mezcal and tequila. How Sacramento-area farmers are leading it

The Sacramento Bee
2023/04/10

California Agave Council Director Craig Reynolds stands by to locally-grown agave spirits last month made from distilled agave plants harvested at Joe Mueller's farm in Woodland. - Paul Kitagaki Jr./The Sacramento Bee/TNS

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — On recent a brisk March morning in Woodland’s rolling hills, Raul “Reppo” Chavez was already covered in sweat.

Chavez and his cousin Antonio had spent the last half-hour hacking away at their agave plants — monstrous pineapple-looking beasts whose spiky leaves are all that can be seen above the soil.

The jimadors, as the farmers of the unique succulent are called, were harvesting agave that they planted six to eight years ago. After a stormy weekend, they will roast the 100-pound agave hearts (known as piñas) for five to seven days in an 8-feet-deep pit covered with pumice and volcanic rocks from around Mount Lassen.

This is where the burgeoning “Mezcalifornia” movement begins. It ends up in small-batch agave spirits produced by craft distilleries throughout the state.

But don’t call it call it tequila or mezcal. That distinction is specific only to agave spirits produced in certain parts of Mexico.

Regardless of the name, it’s still a very niche, craft drink. Agave grows slowly and doesn’t yet have streamlined production in the United States. The resulting liquors are scarce and expensive.

Yet more growers are planting agave — and tequila and mezcal are among the United States’ most popular drinks. When asked about the demand for California-grown agave, farmer and agave advocate Craig Reynolds replied, “I think it’s endless.”

“The craft distillers in California would buy up every mature agave 10 times what I’m producing, 100 times. They’re able to sell their agave spirits at a premium,” Reynolds said. “And it’s just a matter of it scaling up. We have a long way to go to ever come close to saturating the market for agave spirits, in my opinion.”
How agave movement got started

Agave plants grow all over California, from midtown Sacramento sidewalk plots to dirt patches bordering freeways. But most aren’t Blue Weber agave (agave tequilana), the kind most commonly used for distilling tequila and mezcal.

That’s what Reynolds and Chavez grow on neighboring hillsides owned by brothers Joe and Tom Muller in Woodland. The Chavez cousins became acquainted with the industry while growing up in the Mexican state of Jalisco where tequila is made, in a 6,000-person town called Tonaya.

“Tonaya is a little town, but it’s got a lot, a lot of acres of agave. So we started to work a little bit over there. Not too much — more over here, when (Reynolds) came and started to plant that (plot),” Reppo Chavez said.

Reynolds began growing agave in Colima, Mexico in 2006 that would later be used to make Dos Volcanes tequila, which was sold to raise money for a nonprofit called Project Amigo.

Reynolds used his vacation days to check up on the agave and moonlighted as a Dos Volcanes importer to the U.S. while he was working full time as then-state Sen. Lois Wolk’s chief of staff. After retiring, he planted his first stateside agave in 2014.

He started with 500 plants and ended up with a movement. St. George Spirits master distiller Lance Winters, who is based in Alameda, made the first batch of spirits in 2019. Others came calling, both for processed agave and seedlings to start their own plots.

Reynolds founded the California Agave Council in April 2020 to unite growers and set standards across the board. One such principle, signed into state law in September: any bottle marketed as California agave spirits must be 100% made from agave. Traditional tequila requires only 51% agave juice, with the rest coming from corn or cane sugar and coloring agents.

Though Reynolds pioneered commercial agave production in California, he’s quick to differentiate between himself and “real farmers” such as the Chavez cousins, who harvest his plants as well as their own.

That harvesting is hard work. Once the Chavez cousins cut the agaves’ quiotes (flowering stalks that shoot from the center and indicate the plant has fully matured) they have about eight months to extract the piñas.

The jimadors use two types of coas (poles with sharp, round heads) to hack off the spiky leaves and root out the piñas, which they then pull out of the dirt by hand. All that time spent growing, and that’s it for the agave, which can be harvested precisely once.

They then load the piñas into a truck for roasting, which can take another week once the subterranean oven is constructed. The agave leaves are then tilled back into the soil where beans, clover and mustard grow as cover crops.

Once roasted, the piñas are shredded and pressed to extract their sugary juices. Liquor makers then ferment and distill that liquid, proof it down to something around 40-45% ABV and bottle it for sale. Each 750-milliliter bottle requires about 11 pounds of agave.
Drink up!

When Venus Spirits began importing Mexican agave juice to make spirits in 2014, the Santa Cruz distillery was one of three in the U.S. to do so, founder and distiller Sean Venus said.

A couple hundred distillers do the same now, Venus said, but not many get their agave from California. Venus Spirits is one of the fortunate few. It released 450 bottles of El Ladrón Yolo, its first California-grown take on tequila, in 2021, using Reynolds’ agave.

The first El Ladrón Yolo bottles were sold only in the distillery’s tasting room, though the next batch will be slightly larger and distributed through other retailers. Venus Spirits still makes Mexican agave spirits, but they’re not the same.

“It’s quite a bit different. We get more of the vegetal notes from California agave. It’s less sweet, but more minerally, so it’s got more of a true character and flavor than Mexican agave spirits,” Venus said. “It’s a really interesting thing. We’re roasting over almond wood, and a little bit of that smoke character gets into the agave and comes through in the spirits.”

California dirt costs more than Jalisco land, and the traditional cooking method Reynolds uses is time-intensive.

Those factors drive the price of the resulting beverage up: a bottle of El Ladrón Yolo sells for $90, while Venus Spirits’ liquors made from Mexican agave go for $42-$68.

Yet demand is high. Americans are expected to spend more than $13.3 billion on agave spirits tequila and mezcal this year, overtaking vodka and whiskey as the nation’s most-bought spirit, according to beverage research firm IWSR.

Venus and Reynolds expect prices to fall as California’s agave industry grows and becomes more efficient. If more California farmers grow agave, Venus Spirits will buy it.

In the meantime, Venus has planted a few seedlings around the distillery and is exploring larger plots outside of Santa Cruz. “The whole kind of farm-to-bottle thing is a process that is really interesting and unseen by (many) other distillers,” Venus said. “I think it’s something really unique that is happening right now, and we’re just excited to be part of it.”

Right crop, right place?

California’s natural growing conditions — high heat, fertile soil and a Mediterranean climate — make the state suitable for agave as well as many other crops. The California Agave Council now includes farmers from counties as disparate as Lake, San Luis Obispo and Imperial.

But the Central Valley is the area to watch, because this crop takes little precious water. That has farmers like Stuart Woolf ripping out their almond trees in favor of agave plants.

Woolf’s family has farmed in the Westlands Water District since the late 1940s. The family today grows nuts, cotton, alliums, winegrapes, grains and more on 20,000 acres around Huron in Fresno County. Yet with new state laws such as the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) restricting the amount of water farmers can pump, Woolf estimates he’ll eventually fallow 40% of his land.

Woolf plans to lease some of the space to industrial solar companies, but wants to keep farming the crops he can. He began growing 4,000 agave plants in a test plot in 2019. While none is mature yet, they’re thriving so far, he said.

“Is this something akin to when California first started getting into the winegrape business, and we’d have naysayers all over the world saying ‘good luck with that?’” Woolf wondered. “When I drive around my neighborhood, there are agaves everywhere, just in gardens or off the road. We have plants out there in farm country where nobody is irrigating them and they seem to be thriving.”

They’re doing so well, in fact, that Woolf will plant 160 acres of agave this year and he plans to do the same in subsequent years — roughly 200,000 plants per year. His five children had little interest in carrying on the family’s farming legacy, yet when he told them about his agave plans over dinner, they all wanted in.

Woolf is doing all this planting with hopes that someone else will build a commercial plant to cut, heat and extract juice from that many piñas, because none currently exists in California. If no one does by the time they’re ready to be harvested, he still has a plan.

“I’m going to plant all these things and if I can’t get somebody to take them off my hands, I’m going to process them myself,” Woolf said. “It really is a chicken-and-the-egg kind of thing, and I would be getting in a lot deeper if I were to do that. But I don’t know, I’m kind of intrigued by the whole idea.”

Other people are getting involved on the research front, thanks to Woolf’s funding. He and his wife Lisa donated $100,000 last year for UC Davis researchers to investigate agave’s viability in California, with a focus on identifying growing locations, plant attributes and future funding sources.

Agave can survive with little to no water during dry years, but frost can be killer and is more likely in California than Mexico. If water is available, Woolf is looking at using drip irrigation for faster-growing, sugarier plants rather than the dry farming typically done in Mexico.

Agave spirits are rooted in Mexico, and mezcal in particular carries no small amount of mysticism and cultural lore. But California can’t and isn’t making tequila or mezcal. It’s making its own spirit.

“We’re just another part of the family,” Reynolds said. “We’re not trying to take Mexican traditions. We’re California distillers doing their own thing, learning along the way.”

Agave bulbs weighting over 100 pounds are placed in a fire pit last month to be roasted for several days. 

Sean Venus is a distiller from Venus Spirits of Santa Cruz that has ordered three tons of agave from Joe and Muller's farm in Woodland.

A field of agave grows between almond trees on Joe and Mary Muller's farm in Woodland last month. 

Antonio Chavez uses a coa to slice off the leaves of the agave "piña" bulb in Woodland last month. -

Craig Reynolds loads agave piña onto a trailer last month in Woodland

Agave farmer known as a jimador, Raul "Reppo" Chavez, harvests agave hearts called "piñas" on March 17, 2023, in Woodland that will be made into agave spirits. 

Agave hearts weighting over 100 pounds each are placed in an 8- feet-deep fire pit lined with lava rocks last month, where they will be roasted for five to seven days on a farm in Woodland.

Agave plants grow on Joe and Mary Muller's farm in Woodland last month. 

PHOTOS- Paul Kitagaki Jr./The Sacramento Bee/TNS

© The Sacramento Bee

Californians bet farming agave for spirits holds key to weathering drought and groundwater limits

AMY TAXIN
Sat, 4 November 2023 

APTOPIX California Agave Farming
Leo Ortega tours agave plants at his home in Murrieta, Calif., Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. Agave thrives on almost no water. The plant isn't grown on a large scale in California, and it would take years for that to happen, but local distillers say the spirits they've made from agave so far are selling out. 

(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

MURRIETA, Calif. (AP) — Leo Ortega started growing spiky blue agave plants on the arid hillsides around his Southern California home because his wife liked the way they looked.

A decade later, his property is now dotted with thousands of what he and others hope is a promising new crop for the state following years of punishing drought and a push to scale back on groundwater pumping.

The 49-year-old mechanical engineer is one of a growing number of Californians planting agave to be harvested and used to make spirits, much like the way tequila and mezcal are made in Mexico. The trend is fueled by the need to find hardy crops that don’t need much water and a booming appetite for premium alcoholic beverages since the COVID-19 pandemic.

It's attracted entrepreneurs such as Ortega, as well as some California farmers. They're seeking to shift to more water-efficient crops and irrigation methods to avoid fallowing their fields with looming limits on how much groundwater they can pump, as well as more extreme weather patterns anticipated with climate change. Agave, unlike most other crops, thrives on almost no water.

“When we were watering them, they didn’t really grow much, and the ones that weren’t watered were actually growing better,” Ortega said, walking past rows of the succulents.

He is now investing in a distillery after his initial batches of spirits, made from Agave americana, sold for $160 a bottle.

Consumers started spending more on high-quality spirits during the pandemic shutdowns, which spurred a rise in premium beverage products, said Erlinda A. Doherty, an agave spirits expert and consultant.

Tequila and mezcal were the second-fastest growing spirit category in the country in 2022, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.

Both are proprietary spirits under Mexican laws, which are recognized in U.S. trade agreements. Much like how champagne hails from a region of France, anything called tequila must contain at least 51% blue Weber agave and be distilled in Jalisco or a handful of other Mexican states. Mezcal can be made from a variety of agave types but must be produced in certain Mexican states.

Agave growers and distillers in California — as well as some in Texas and Arizona — are betting there is an appetite for more agave-based spirits even if they are produced outside of Mexico and not called tequila or mezcal.

“We seem to have this insatiable thirst for agave, so why not have a domestically grown supply?” Doherty said. “I am kind of bullish on it.”

Alfonso Mojica Navarro, director of the Mexican Chamber of the Tequila Industry, said tequila has a lengthy history, global reputation for excellence and close connection with Mexican culture. While he didn’t comment specifically on California’s foray into agave spirits, he said he believes Mexico can respond to the growing demand.

“The tequila industry is concerned that each time there are more players trying to take advantage of tequila’s success by producing agave spirits, liqueurs or other beverages that allude to the Mexican drink, its origins and characteristics despite not being the same,” he said in a statement.

Agave isn't grown on a large scale in California yet, and it would take years for that to happen. But spirits, made by cooking the plant's core to produce sugars that are fermented, are proving popular, said Ventura Spirits owner Henry Tarmy, who distilled his first batch five years ago.

“We’ve sold everything we’ve made,” he said.

Much like Mexico has, California is taking steps to protect its nascent industry. The state legislature enacted a law last year requiring “California agave spirits” be made solely with plants grown in the state and without additives.

A dozen growers and a handful of distillers also formed the California Agave Council last year, and the group has tripled in size since then, said Craig Reynolds, the founding director who planted agave in the Northern California community of Davis. He said those making agave spirits have a deep appreciation for Mexican tequila.

“We have about 45 member growers," he said. “All of them want more plants.”

Agave takes little water but presents other challenges. The plant typically takes at least seven years to grow and is tough to harvest, and a mature plant can weigh hundreds of pounds. Once cut, it has to be grown all over again.

Still, many see agave as a viable alternative as California — which supplies the bulk of the country’s produce — explores ways to cut back water use.

While record rain and snowfall over the winter mostly ended a three-year drought in California, more dry periods are likely in store. The state enacted a law nearly a decade ago to regulate the pumping of groundwater after excessive pumping led some residents' wells to run dry and the land to sink. Scientists expect extreme weather patterns will become even more common as the planet warms, causing more drought.

Stuart Woolf, who grows tomatoes and almonds in the state's crop-rich Central Valley, said he started thinking about agave after estimating he’ll only be able to farm about 60% of his land in 20 years due to water limitations. And that's despite investing in solar energy and groundwater recharge projects to protect the farm that has been in his family for generations.

After trying out a test plot a few years ago, Woolf went on to plant some 200,000 agave on land he otherwise would have fallowed. Each acre of agave is taking only 3 inches (7.6 centimeters) of water a year — a tenth of what row crops demand and even less than pistachio and almond trees, he said.

Woolf and his wife Lisa gave a $100,000 donation to the University of California, Davis, which formed a research fund to look at the succulent’s varieties and its potential as a low-water crop.

“I have been trying to figure out what is a crop that I can grow that is somewhat climate-resilient, drought-tolerant, so I can utilize our land,” Woolf said. “The amount of water I am giving them is so low, I don’t think I am ever going to have a problem.”

Leo Ortega and his wife walk around their property, surrounded by blue agave plants, in Murrieta, Calif., Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. Ortega started growing blue agave plants on the hillsides of his Southern California home because his wife liked the way they looked. Today, his property is littered with what some say could be a promising new crop for water-challenged California.

Agave plants grow by the home of Leo Ortega and his wife, in Murrieta, Calif., Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. Ortega started growing blue agave plants on the hillsides of his Southern California home because his wife liked the way they looked. Today, his property is littered with what some say could be a promising new crop for water-challenged California.

Agave plants are shown at the home of Leo Ortega, in Murrieta, Calif., Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. Agave thrives on almost no water. The plant isn't grown on a large scale in California, and it would take years for that to happen, but local distillers say the spirits they've made from agave so far are selling out. 



Leo Ortega stands near young agave plants that are next to his greenhouse, in Murrieta, Calif., Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. Ortega started growing blue agave plants on the hillsides of his Southern California home because his wife liked the way they looked. Today, his property is littered with what some say could be a promising new crop for water-challenged California. 

Agave plants are lined up at the home of Leo Ortega, in Murrieta, Calif., Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. Agave thrives on almost no water. The plant isn't grown on a large scale in California, and it would take years for that to happen, but local distillers say the spirits they've made from agave so far are selling out. 

Leo Ortega and his wife pour Agave Murrieta, made from their agave plants, at their home in Murrieta, Calif., Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023.

A bottle of Agave Murrieta, far right, is shown by Leo Ortega, made from Agave Americana plants grown at Ortega's home in Murrieta, Calif., Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. There's been a burst of interest in growing agave, the plant used to make Tequila popular in Mexico, in California after years of punishing drought and a push by the state to regulate groundwater use to shore up waning supplies. It started with entrepreneurs like Ortega, who is now investing in a distillery to turn his plants into a California spirit. 

A bottle of Agave Murrieta, a spirt distilled from Agave Americana plants grown at the home of Leo Ortega, is shown in Murrieta, Calif., Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. There's been a burst of interest in growing agave, the plant used to make Tequila popular in Mexico, in California after years of punishing drought and a push by the state to regulate groundwater use to shore up waning supplies. It started with entrepreneurs like Ortega, who is now investing in a distillery to turn his plants into a California spirit. 



Leo Ortega's home is surrounded by Agave Americana plants in Murrieta, Calif., Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. Ortega started growing blue agave plants on the hillsides of his Southern California home because his wife liked the way they looked. Today, his property is littered with what some say could be a promising new crop for water-challenged California. 

Leo Ortega carries a massive, flowering asparagus spear from an Agave Americana plant, at his home in Murrieta, Calif., Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. There's been a burst of interest in growing agave, the plant used to make Tequila popular in Mexico, in California after years of punishing drought and a push by the state to regulate groundwater use to shore up waning supplies. It started with entrepreneurs like Ortega, who is now investing in a distillery to turn his plants into a California spirit. 

Leo Ortega talks about the Agave Americana plants that surround his home in Murrieta, Calif., Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. Ortega started growing blue agave plants on the hillsides of his Southern California home because his wife liked the way they looked. 

Leo Ortega and his wife tour the Agave Americana plants around their home in Murrieta, Calif., Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. Ortega started growing blue agave plants on the hillsides of his Southern California home because his wife liked the way they looked. Today, his property is littered with what some say could be a promising new crop for water-challenged California. 

(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

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