Jose Geremias Vasquez Diaz
Perfectly sourcing the wrong batch
The sourcing of this batch was partially by mistake. About two years ago, Chava made a trip to Estado de Mexico with some legends of the mezcal world, including Cornelio Peréz (who coined the term “Gusto Histórico”). They were planning to visit a well known and respected distiller in Estado de Mexico who’s name escapes us.
Chava went, ate delicious food, drank “very pretty mezcal” and was all jazzed up about the idea of exporting something from Estado de Mexico – a state that to his knowledge had not been exported to the US or at minimum, was extremely under-represented.
Later that year, I went on a sourcing mission with the coordinates of this lead that we pulled from a national bottle and with some input from Las Chingonas imports about where we might find other producers. In all, we visited 15 palenques, bought about 20 or so different samples, and eventually narrowed it down to two features. All in all, most of the samples were mediocre or simply didn’t align with the heavy character spirits we typically seek out.
Carmelo, featured in December of 2023, was the less conventional flavor while Jose would serve as our best benchmark Criollo profile. We found these two expressions were a great representation of the range in flavor as well as the quality that Estado de Mexico offered and between the two of them, they would give club members an overall informed sense of the region.
We wouldn’t know it until Chava arrived for interviews, but this was not the mezcalero he sent me there to meet. It turned out that the two mezcaleros used to share the same distillery and had a Sanzekan co-op like relationship together. Unfortunately, as it often happens in mezcal, they decided to break their relationship and work on their own individual projects.
None the less, Chava was impressed with their spirit and felt it was a clear standout winner to the other samples purchased. Not that price necessarily correlates to quality, but these guys were the only ones in town with a premium markup on their juice, which in our experience, that has often been one indicator of higher quality control and elevated reputation.
Criollo and other considerations
About three out of four palenques offered exclusively pure joven criollo and nothing more. One in four would offer either joven criollo, aged in glass criollo, or criollo infused with the cooked agave hearts.
Although it was slightly tempting to buy into the novelty of an agave heart infused criollo aged in glass for three years and put a third producer into a 100 mL bottle, my favorite example of this did NOT perform well in the blind tasting sessions. Ultimately we decided that this region could be summarized up by two pure joven expressions and leave it at that. We found that this region provided a more approachable character that would pair well with a character rich bottle like a Karwinskii out of a refrescador pot and that the two bottles together would be a nice set for those Christmas newcomers to the club.
Lastly, like Carmelo of 23′, we were shocked about the artisanal process of this region (crushing with cartoon hammers, Filipino tree trunk stills with Arabic condenser unique to this region) and that it all just seemed to be less than a footnote in the national and international mezcal scene. We hope that through our presentation of Carmelo and Jose, members may visit Mexico City and take a day to explore a less familiar agave spirits region. If you are good at making bad decisions, you can even do an ATV tour to some of these distilleries from the Pueblo Magico, Malinalco.
Want to re-meet Jose and learn more about this Criollo batch?
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:
- Why the mezcal community not familiar with Estado de Mexico mezcal even if they use very interesting agaves with Filipino stills!?
- How did Filipino still got popular in an area that mostly surrounded with copper alembics?
- What exactly is agave “criollo”?
Quotes of the Month
“Very few people know that mezcal is being made in the south of the Estado de Mexico.”
~Jose Geremais Vasquez Diaz
CRAFTSMANSHIP TRADITION SUSTAINABILITY
