Sierra Negra - Albarradas

Batch: O-EL-02

Release date: Private Batch Pick - Side Hustle

At a glance:

  • Maguey: Sierra Negra (A. Americana)
  • Producer: Ever López
  • Region: Santa Catarina Albarradas, Sierra Norte, Oaxaca
  • Cooking: Small in-earth horno, covered with banana leaves
  • Milling: By hand with wooden mallet
  • Fermentation: Open air in rawhide well with added bark from tepehuaje tree
  • Distillation: Double distilled in small clay pots
  • Batch size: 60 litres
  • Date of production: September 2024
  • ABV: 46.4%

Santa Catarina Albarradas is a remote community in the northern mountains of Oaxaca. Mezcal production here is extremely small scale and traditional in style.

We’re very pleased to present our second bottling from young mezcalero Ever López. This is a fascinating batch, and we’re looking forward to sharing more of Ever’s work in the future.

Mighty Sierra Negra

Wild maguey Sierra Negra

The piña of a single mature agave Americana can weigh up to 500kg

Huge, mature (20+ yr old) maguey Sierra Negra (Agave American) were wild harvested from the hills of the northern sierra.

Back at the palenque the piñas were roasted in a small conical oven, covered with banana leaves, as well as the leaves of the local tepejuaje tree.

Milling here is ancestral style – entirely by hand, using heavy wooden mallets to squash the cooked plants as soon as they can be removed from the oven.

The road to Albarradas

Covering the oven with leaves

Tepajuaje & banana leaves

Hand milling with mallets

Carrying the tepejuaje bark

Tepejuaje bark for the ferment

Hand mashing

The bark from that same tepejuaje tree is used here as an addition to the ferment. In this high-altitude cloud forest environment, the bark is thought to add a nitrogen source to keep the natural open-air ferment from dying in the cool evenings.

Distillation is also the most rudimentary and ancestral ‘filipino’ style, with a double pass of small clay pots.

Fermenting - Dasylirion & Tepejuaje

Tiny clay pot still

Distilling

Batch sizes are tiny, with this September 2024 production clocking in at just 60 litres.

An incredibly special liquid.

Gracias Ever

House Tasting Notes:

Nose: Lactic out of the bottle – almost like a coastal raicilla from Jalisco, yet we’re nowhere near Jalisco or the coast. Also lots of tropical fruit on the nose. Very little smoke, and barely any of the grassy, straw like tones you might expect from cucharilla or sotol elsewhere. This is all Albarradas.

Palate: Those tropical fruits are much more pronounced on first sip and become bubble gum into the mid-palate. An earthiness starts to enter the back end, mixing with very pleasing notes of black pepper.

Finish: It’s only on the slightly dry finish that the clay pot style makes itself knows, leaving us with a mineral flourish that makes you want to go straight back around for that lactic start. Wonderful. 

This batch was bottled exclusively for the Side Hustle bar at the Nomad Hotel in Covent Garden, London.

For a copita, head to Side Hustle:

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