Five of Maguey Melate’s rarest agave spirits batches tasted and curated by Chris Hoel, Founder of Harper’s Club. This selection expresses his appreciation for artisanal agave spirits and those who make them. Each spirit is unique, and will never be made again.
The main event:
Inaequidens aged in glass since 2016
Handcrafted by José Rafael García Fernández
(RIP 2023)
+100 mL Inaequidens infused with worm – Rafael
+375 mL Inaequidens – Raul
+1 copper jicara from Michoacan foundry
30 liters remaining of Rafael's 150 liter masterpiece. Learn more here.
This box set contains three expressions of Michoacan’s local favorite, but terribly inefficient, agave Inaequidens, commonly referred to as Alto as they only grow 2000 meters or higher on mountainsides. One expression is pure Inaequidens, one is infused with gusanos (worms; not actually in bottle), and one has been aged in glass for 7 years.
The superstar of this box is Rafael who passed away one week before we set out to interview him in February 2023. His grandson carries on his legacy and captures Rafael’s teachings in the interviews.
375 mL Inaequidens from 2016 – Rafael:
We only met Rafael briefly once several years ago. When we heard he had a batch that’s been aging since 2016 in 20-liter glass jugs that were suddenly for sale, we jumped all over it. Inaequidens is an extremely expensive spirit to produce as it has few sugars and is very difficult to procure on the mountainside. For every 35 kilos of agave, one extracts about one liter of mezcal. To age such a delicacy in glass is unheard of and something we have never come across in over 500 distillery visits.
This is an exquisitely sourced Inaequidens expression. It was selected on the basis of being the best benchmark for what a pure Inaequidens batch tastes like and provides a great comparison point for the other two expressions in the box. Raul is a third-generation producer using an artisanal Filipino still. He’s made about 180 batches of agave spirits since he began overseeing his own production in 1993.
100 mL Inaequidens infused with worm – Rafael:
The worm, agave, and producer have always had a paradoxical relationship. The worm needs to eat the agave, the producer often eats the worm, and the producer needs to harvest the agave before the worm makes it unusable. The tradition of putting a worm into the spirit is a contested history and a controversial one. It certainly imparts flavor and was a tradition long before a brand popularized it in 90’s in the USA.
Four more micro-batches never to be reproduced again:
40 year-old infinity batch
(Jalisco)
This batch has been 60 years in the making if you count the initial agaves taking 20 years to grow. Collector Luis Velasco has spent his whole life “searching for the soul of mezcal”.
This is accumulation of his life’s work.
Agave Pelon Verde
(Oaxaca)
Sadly, Sergio Martínez Rodríguez passed away in 2023 at 29 years old. 8 years ago, he was the only producer to cultivate this inefficient “bald agave”. This is the first and one of the last batches he made with his endemic Pelon Verde.
2007 aged in glass Cupreata
(Guerrero)
This batch comes from a collectivo called Sanzekan in which they store 20-40 liters of top batches in glass in their dark mountain cave. It’s Isaias’ oldest batch in the cave and delicious. Melate bought the 32 liters available. 17 remain.
2022 aged in glass Cupreata
(Guerrero)
This makes a fine comparison point from the 2007 batch. It is 15 years of experience later and surely one of the final batches that will be made by Isaias as he enters his late 70’s. It was rested in the cave for one year before Melate scooped it up.
