Coyote con Tobala y Tepextate - Amatlán

Batch: NGG-13

Release date: October 2023

Main image for the Coyote con Tobala y Tepextate - Amatlán mezcal webpage on the Sin gusano project website
Main image for the Coyote con Tobala y Tepextate - Amatlán mezcal webpage on the Sin gusano project website

At a glance:

  • Maguey: Coyote (Agave sp.), Tobala (A. Potatorum). Tepextate (A. Marmorata
  • Producer: Nicolas Garcia Gutierrez
  • Region: San Luis Amatlán, Miahuatlán District, Oaxaca
  • Cooking: Classic in-earth horno: 1 week roast
  • Milling: Machete & shredder
  • Fermentation: 1 week in open-air wooden tina with spring water
  • Distillation: Double pass in copper alembic
  • Composition: Heads, hearts and tails
  • Batch size: 34 litres
  • Date of production: October 2021
  • ABV: 47.0%
  • Special notes: Distillers choice

It’s always a pleasure to return to Nicolas and family in San Luis Amatlán, both for their wonderful hospitality and their exceptional micro-batch agave spirits.

Nicolas is something of a wizard when it comes to ensembles, and we’re very pleased to have been working with him long enough to know which ones are his personal favourites - this rarely seen agave mix is one of them.

The batch we have here is majority (70%) maguey Coyote, with a roughly 15% mix of each maguey Tobala (A. Potatorum) and maguey Tepextate (A. Marmorata). Each of these are highly prized and relatively rarely used agave species.

an Agave being harvested to make mezcal
an Agave plant being harvested to make mezcal

The plant known as Coyote in the Miahuatlán region grows egg shaped, as seen above. It’s an entirely different species to the Agave Americana known as Coyote in other parts of Oaxaca. There can be quite wide variance in size of these plants, which are almost exclusively found in the wild. Producers who work with Coyote see it as a localised hybrid between Agave Karwinsli, Agave Potatorum, and Agave Seemanniana. Although at least one of the local varieties has been officially classified as Agave Lyobaa.

Agave grown to make mezcal

Agave Marmorata

Agave Potatorum grown for mezcal

Agave Potatorum

an in ground oven being prepared for mezcal

The over build is a precise process

Men with huge Agave plants ready to cut them to cook for mezcal

Nico directing the oven build

Pinas stacked up waiting to be roasted for mezcal

Mixed roasted agave ready for milling and fermentation

Swapping out the bagaso from the still during mezcal distillation

Swapping out the bagaso from the still

Tepextate and Tobala are a little less complex to understand, but no less highly prized, with their length maturation times and inherent natures making them relatively difficult to cultivate.

Agave Potatorum doesn’t produce hijuelos (baby clones that can be collected and re-planted, and Agave Marmorata can take half a lifetime to reach maturity.

Nicolas’ family land is rich in agave diversity. Check out the small video below of Nicolas leading a walk around the campo.

It’s the norm at this palenque to create field blends from mixed roast with various agaves that were ripe at the time. For this batch Nicolas selected only the most well roasted Coyote, Tobala, and Tepextate plants, which had spent a week in the pit.

It’s a particularly tiny single tina fermentation batch, double distilled in the palenque’s copper alembic in October 2021.

After proofing with heads and tails (puntas y colas) the final yield was just 34 litres.

Nicolas, creator of the Coyote con Tobala y Tepextate - Amatlán mezcal

Gracias Nicolas

House Tasting Notes:

On first nose it’s floral, vegetal, and salty all at once. Tones of jasmine waft over damp pine forest and fresh cut rosemary. On first sip it’s a spice blend explosion, with oregano and anise coming through before a round mouth feel and pleasing sweetness fill the mid-palate. With time in the glass this one opens to become fruitier, with sweet and sour notes of kumquat and vanilla, all the while retaining the unmistakable saline backbone that runs through Nicolas’ spirits. Exceptional – both a distillers and house favourite.

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