An Unofficial Raicilla Superstar

And One of the Last Clay Pot Jalisco Alembics

(Excuse my Spanglish)

Enter Non-DO Raicilla

Last month, we spent some time talking about the Dasylirions from Sonora, which, by law, must be called “Palmilla” because they are not included in the Sotol Denomination of Origin. This time we have a similar case, but with a very different story. If you’ve been drinking Mexican spirits for a while, I am pretty sure that you’ve come across the colorful “La Venenosa” bottles. They have been masters of distribution for years and years, and I’ve encountered their raicillas even in the most unlikely places, like those cheesy, messy Los Cabos bars ($20 USD caguamas! Just the pits). La Venenosa is famous for having a wide selection of raicillas, of which my absolute favorite has always been Arturo Campos’ juice. I can’t quite describe why, but it always felt like an outlier to me. And now, while I was doing proper research to write this newsletter, I think I found out exactly why.

Even though he is probably one of the most famous raicilleros out there, his town was not included in the official DO. I went through the full document, which is, let’s say, very lightly argumented. And I couldn’t find much information on why and how the 15 Jalisco municipalities and the 1 Nayarit town included in the DO were chosen. The DO talks about the differences between what is considered “Racilla de la Sierra” (Mountain Raicilla) vs “Raicilla de la Costa” (Coastal Raicilla), but not many details are given on how each specific municipality proved that it was essential to the raicilla tradition.

It must be said that San Juan Espanatica, where this expression was crafted, is about 5 hours away from the epicenter of the DO, and Arturo Campos, at least when I’ve been around, has always called his spirits “vino” (wine). So I’ll leave it to you, dear nerds, to decide. Should we call this release “racilla” or shall we stay with the more generic and humble “vino”? If you guys end up leaving a review for this bottle in Mezcal Reviews, throw your vote in there, and we’ll post the results in the next newsletter.

Finding Arturo Campos

As I mentioned at the beginning, I was first introduced to Arturo through his spirits. Many years later, I finally had the chance to visit his “tachica”, which is the name he uses to call his distillery. Still, at the time, he was committed to producing only spirits for his community and for La Venenosa. I remember how impressed I was with his tachica, carved into something that felt like a miniature jungle. There were massive trees all around, and you had to be alert to the falling mangoes that could probably give you a pretty good “chipote” (head bump)

It took a few more years until I accidentally came across him in one of my local bars. He had decided to launch his own brand (Fiesta en la Montaña) and was visiting Mexico City to promote some expressions I had never tried before. He had always been famous for his Cenizo, but I had never tried his Ixtero Amarillo, which is one of my favorite Agaves from the South of Jalisco. After a few sips, I loved it intensely, and we shook hands right there to make this feature a reality.  Maybe a noteworthy nuance to this story is that I recently read an article on Raicilla, written by Jonny (one of our friends at Mezcal Reviews). He mentions that back then, in Arturo’s community, they would call all agaves Cenizos, without distinguishing among species or varietals, so it seems that Arturo has just started working with monovarietals rather than solely making field ensambles.

In all of Jalisco, I can only think of two producers who work with alembics featuring both a clay pot and a clay condenser: Luis Contreras from Manzanilla de la Paz and Arturo Campos in San Juan Espanatica. All of the other producers that use internal capturation alembics (opposed to alembics that condense the alcoholic vapors using a metal coil) would sometimes use a clay pot, but would prefer a wooden condenser, like the ones we’ve documented extensively in Río de Parras, Michoacán, or in Zapotitlán de Vadillo, Jalisco. It is really hard to know why each community chose a specific alembic design; maybe they preferred the flavor, or they had skilled ceramists at hand. We will never know, but it surely makes this labyrinth more interesting.

When selecting this spirit, having it distilled in a full clay-pot alembic was very important to me, especially because I wanted to do a box where you could compare and contrast two clay-pot spirits, made in different regions—a Jalisco vs. Oaxaca face-off for the ages. There are various differences between those spirits that do not make this an apples-to-apples comparison, starting with the agave species, but both are made in very similar-shaped alembics, using almost identical techniques for cooking and fermenting. So I am sure that you’ll at least find some subtle commonalities. Or not! And that would talk about how much a territory can influence the flavor profile, erasing any possible traces of the tools used to make them.

When I was in San Juan Espanatica I was very impressed with the size and beauty of the agaves. It felt in many ways like walking with dinosaurs. So it was a bit of a surprise to understand that Arturo is the last Maestro in town. Even though there are plenty of glorious Agaves to work with, very apt yeast, and an exciting terroir, no one else in this community is interested in the spirits’ craft, for now.

I suspect that many other talented Maestros are still alive. They may be living as immigrants in a city, or up there in the North, but they still have the skills to create beautiful spirits. My hope for this feature is that one of them will see our videos and photos and be convinced it is time to return home to continue their family’s craft. That may be a rather ambitious wish, but if this club is capable of having such an impact, I’ll be the happiest man alive.

I hope you guys have a blast comparing and contrasting these two spirits. They are both made by my incredible Maestros using some of the prettiest Agaves available in Mexico. So, cheers and happy tasting!

Follow along throughout the month on facebook or instagram to get all the videos, fun facts, and conversations about this month’s feature. Some topics to look forward to include:

• More on the grand diversity of the Jalisco agave spirits.
• The different Agaves they plant and their strategy to preserve genetic diversity.
• The biggest challenge that Arturo acknowledges for a bright mezcal future.