raicilla costa 2023
Batch: J-PJ-01
Release date: August 2024
Travelling as far north as the road goes in the coastal Cabo Corrientes region of Jalisco, you arrive at Mal Paso. Here Pedro Joya has relatively recently picked up the baton from his father Hildegardo, and crafts tiny batch agave spirits in traditional style.
This part of Jalisco is something of a paradise, with tropical fruits growing all around. The hills just inland from Mal Paso offer magueys Cenizo (A. Rhodacantha), Verde (A. Angustifolia), and Amarillo (A. Angustifolia). While they are all quite distinct to look at, they are almost always roasted, fermented, and distilled together as an ensemble, and they are all referred to locally simply as ‘raicilla’.
Tropical fruit stalls on the road
This summer 2022 production is one such ensemble. A roughly even mix of the three agaves was loaded into the particularly deep stone-lined horno over a fire built with local oak for a week-long roast. The roasted maguey was then milled by hand in a dugout canoa using hand carved wooden mallets.
Agave arriving at the Vinata
Pedro’s deep oven
Agave waiting for the oven
That sweet, mashed syrup and fibre was then loaded into a plastic rotoplas – they type seen on the roofs of budling’s all over Mexico – along with local spring water and left to naturally ferment for a particularly lengthy 20-day period.
Mashing malts
Stones keep the ferment down
Once fully fermented, the alcoholic mash was double distilled in this filipino set-up that’s unique to the Jalisco coast. A piece of hollowed out trunk from the bonete tree sits atop a copper boiling pot. The vapours condense on the underside of the copper lid, captured in-still by a suspended spoon that runs the distillate out of the tree trunk via a tightly bound agave leaf.
Gracias Pedro
House tasting notes:
Nose: Pine, brine, cheese.
Palate: Wow, the first sip is a huge palate filling delight. Elote (BBQ sweetcorn) with all the butter and cheese, overlaid with tropical fruits. It seems to get thicker in the glass and becomes a wonderful blend of fruity and woody sweetness mixed with strong lactic and cheesy tones.
Finish: Sadly, in the end, it does. But not before leaving tickles of charred pine that fade into mellow cooked agave.
Grab a bottle for your collection while stocks last:
Continue your agave spirits journey via the Mezcal Appreciation Society:
