Meet the Maestro of April 2021: Carlos Ángulo Ríos. Carlos, our first club feature to represent Durango spirits, is a third generation producer although his family took a 20 year hiatus from the craft. Now 40 years old, Carlos has made agave distillation his primary means of living since 2015, when he completed the construction of “El Platanar” and simultaneously his first nine-year-old batch of Chacaleño came to maturation. Carlos’s vinata (Durango for ‘palenque’) is located 11 hours away (14 hours with a car full of mezcal!) from Durango’s capital city in the middle of an area known as “La Quebrada”, roughly translated to “the broken area”, a well deserved nickname for this collection of aggressive cliffs and narrow valleys. According to those who know Carlos, he is both humble and confident, energetic although a little camera shy, and while he lives isolated in the deep mountains, he remains very connected and current with the world and it’s affairs. Throughout April, we invite you to get to know Carlos, learn about his unique nameless still, why his family uses cubical underground fermentation vats, and some environmental factors that make this Chacaleño expression unlike any other.
