Aguacasado de Cenizo - el Venado

Batch: D-AC-02

Release date: El Camion & The Pink Chihuahua Exclusive Batch

Main webpage image for the Biquix con Piña - El Guayabo mezcal
Main webpage image for the Biquix con Piña - El Guayabo mezcal

At a glance:

  • Maguey: Cenizo (A. Durangensis), distilled with hoja de aguacate
  • Producer: Agustin Carillo
  • Community: El Venado, Durango
  • Cooking: 3-4 day roast with pine wood, in-earth horno
  • Milling: Axe & wood chipper
  • Fermentation: 3-4 days in Durango 'grave' style in-earth wood-lined trough
  • Distillation: Double pass in Durango style hybrid wooden alembic
  • Composition: Heads & hearts
  • Batch size: 50 litres
  • Date of production: September 2023
  • ABV: 46.5%
  • Special notes: 6 agave stones and 15 leaves (hoja de aguacate) added to second distillation

If you travel to Durango in search of mezcal, your first stop is likely to be Nombre de Dios. But drive the steep dirt tracks an hour south and you’ll find the tiny community of El Venado, which has is own particular style.

This tiny batch of the local ‘Aguacasado’ has been bottled exclusively for El Camion Soho.

Agave growing in the Mexican desert ready to make mezcal

Wild Cenizo

Donkeys and agave growing in the Mexican desert all for the production of small batch mezcal

Cenizo harvest

For this batch, once they arrived at the palenque, the Cenizo piñas were roasted in this earthen pit with for 3 days with pine wood and volcanic rock.

The roasted agave was then chopped by axe and milled with the wood chipper before being fermented for 3-days in the quintessential Durango style wells. These are a series of relatively small capacity in-earth ‘graves’ lined with wood. The natural insulation of the earth keeps the ferment from dying out in the often cooler northern climate.

Oven in El Venado to make mezcal

Oven in El Venado

Milling & Fermentation wells for mezcal production

Milling & Fermentation wells

A wooden condensing chamber for making mezcal

Distillation in Durango is in this hybrid alembic-filipino style. It’s got the wooden filipino style top condensing pot that you’ll see in Michoacán to the south, but no condensing lid with water running into it, and no in-still capture system.

Instead the vapour is forced out of the wooden top pot into an attached serpentine coil in a cooling bath… the likes of which you would see with regular alembic distillation. The boiling pot is copper, and everything is double passed.

Given the defining feature of ‘filipino’ style distillation is the in-still capture, lets call this ‘Durango style alembic’

The wooden condensing chambers of these stills are known locally as ‘los viejitos’ (the old men), and they can be seen lazing around in rivers and wells between distillations, where producers store them to keep them from drying out and cracking, extending their working lives into old age.

wooden condensing chambers used to make mezcal on a farm with cows in the background
A wooden condensing chamber used for the production of mezcal, kept in water when not in use so it doesn't dry out
A man with a wooden condensing chamber for mezcal production

Crucially for this batch of ‘Aguacasado’, on the second distillation 6 avocado stones / seeds were added the the boiling pot, along with 15 of the powerful avocado leaf (hoja de aguacate). These avocado leaves are common in Mexican cuisine and offer a herbal anise type flavour.

Agustin, the creator of Aguacasado de Cenizo - el Venado mezcal

Gracias Agustin

House Tasting Notes:

Rustic, sweet, herbaceous from the hoja de aguacate.

a bottle of the El Cameon, Soho mezcal. A limited release bottle by the Sin Gusano project

This batch has been bottled exclusive for El Camion.

For a capita, head to the bar in Soho.

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