Tepextate - Amatlán

Batch: NGG-19

Release date: April 2024

The Main image for the Sin Gusano project webpage for the Tepextate - Amatlán Mezcal Appreciation Society
The Main image for the Sin Gusano project webpage for the Tepextate - Amatlán Mezcal Appreciation Society

At a glance:

  • Maguey: Tepextate (A. Marmorata)
  • Producer: Nicolas Garcia Gutíerrez
  • 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 added on day 3
  • Distillation: Double pass in copper alembic
  • Composition: Heads, hearts and tails
  • Batch size: 260 litres
  • Date of production: April 2023
  • ABV: 47.2%

In San Luis Amatlán, in the Miahuatlán district of southern Oaxaca, you’ll find Nicolas Garcia Gutierrez and family making exceptional agave spirits.

We have been visiting the region and working with this family for some 8 years now. In that time there’s been a noticeable drop-off in general availability of Tepextate (Agave Marmorata). The last pure Tepextate we released from here was this 2019 production, and indeed on that batch page we pointed to the coming shortage.

While new cultivation efforts are underway that should yield some cultivated maguey Tepextate (Agave Marmorata) in the years ahead, for the moment all Tepextate continues to be harvested from wild stock. This, combined with with particularly long maturation period (upwards of 20 years), has seen Tepextate become an increasingly rare beast in Oaxaca’s mezcal producing communities.

Luckily for all of us, Nicolas has come to an arrangement with family in the neighbouring community of San Antonio Chiguivana. He travels to the relatively lush hills of Chiguivana to harvest a sustainable quantity of mature plants from the families private land, then sends back 50% of the finished batches of distilled tepextate as payment - win win!

The agave-rich, lush hills of Chiguivana ready to harvest for mezcal production

The agave-rich, lush hills of Chiguivana

Wild agave in Chiguivana, grown to make mezcal

Wild agave in Chiguivana

Nicolas & Jon from the Sin Gusano project, checking out the wild Tepextate in Chiguivana

Nicolas & Jon checking out the wild Tepextate in Chiguivana

When it’s time do the heavy manual labour of building the oven with wood and rocks, and then covering it with the agave, the community comes to help and receives a hearty breakfast when it’s done. They in turn will receive help when building their oven.

This stems from the wider system of ‘tequio’, the traditional practice of sharing labour and communal tasks that has existed in these communities since before colonial rule or any state intervention. These are true community spirits.

Wild Chiguivana Tepextate used to make mezcal and agave spirits

Wild Chiguivana Tepextate

A group of distillery workers around an outdoor oven built for mezcal

Pre-dawn, waiting for the rocks in the horno to heat

A group of men filling the outdoor oven with agave to make mezcal

Community oven covering at sunrise

Almost breakfast time at the mezcal distillery

Almost breakfast time

Jon Darby from the Sin Gusano project cutting agave with a Machete ready for the shredder to make mezcal

Machete work

Agave chunks ready for the shredder during the process of making mezcal

Agave chunks ready for the shredder

The agave was roasted in an earthen horno before being milled by machete and mechanical chipper. The milled roasted agave was then left in large open air wooden tubs, or ‘tinas’, with the addition of local well water, to interact with the airborne yeasts and naturally ferment foe a week (the first 3 days without water).

Then the sour fermented mash, at this point around 10% alcohol, was loaded bit-by-bit into the boiling chamber of the still. It will take multiple fills of the still to use all the mash in the fermentation tub. And Nicholas employs a very old school technique of adding a little of the first pass, or ‘ordinario’ distillate back into the boiling chamber with each new fill of ferment.

the agave Fermenting for the Tepextate - Amatlán mezcal

Fermenting

All the fibre goes in the still for the first pass to make the mezcal

All the fibre goes in the still for the first pass

Swapping out the mash for mezcal production

Swapping out the mash

Everything in this batch was ultimately at least double passed (some triple, when you take into account that old-school technique). After the second distillation the batch was proofed with puntas and colas (heads and tails).

Nicolas, the creator of the Tepextate - Amatlán mezcal

Gracias Nicolas

House Tasting Notes:

Nose: First nose is salty and vegetal, with notes of olive brine. Unmistakably the terror of Amatlán.

Palate: The first sip follows on from the nose - very saline and mineral forward. But after a moment of aerating in the glass things start to become a lot more fruity and sweet. Within a few minutes it’s opened to chocolate, vanilla, and fresh leather. A really spectacular flavour journey. Try pairing with salted dark chocolate.

Finish: Long and complex. Wonderfully rounded salted dark chocolate and caramel with background umami notes of crispy seaweed.

A bottle of the Tepextate mezcal exclusively bottled for limited release by the Sin Gusano project

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