jabalí & Tobaziche - minas

Batch: RA-01

Release date: August 2022

At a glance:

  • Maguey: Ensemble de Jabalí (A.Convallis), Tobaziche (A.Karwinski), Espadín (A.Angustifolia)
  • Producer: Rosario Angeles
  • Region: Santa Catarina Minas, Ocotlan district, Oaxaca central valleys
  • Cooking: In earth horno
  • Milling: By hand with machete & wooden mallet
  • Fermentation: Wooden tina
  • Distillation: Double pass in clay filipino still
  • Composition: Heads, hearts and tails
  • Batch size: 29.5 litres
  • Date of production: October 2021
  • ABV: 48.8%

Rosario Ángeles is kind of the new kid on the block. And that block is Santa Catarina Minas, in the Ocotlán district of Oaxacas central valleys.

Despite having no direct family lineage of mezcal making, this young mezcalera returned during the pandemic to her home community from the US, and built a brand new palenque on the edge of this most famous of mezcal villages.

And she’s done a great job. The palenque is a beautiful space to spend an afternoon. Moreover, Rosario and her team are having fun experimenting with lot of small batches and interesting new recipes - lobster pechuga anyone?

Rosario is in the process of building her own brand for export - Mezcal Rambhá - and we would encourage a visit to the new palenque if you go to Oaxaca.

  • A mezcal tasting in Mexico
  • A woman sat at a table waiting for a mezcal tasting to begin
  • crushed pinas waiting to be milled for Mezcal production

Here we are pleased to present one of the early distillates to run off the new clay pot stills. A truly micro-batch ensemble of Jabalí (A.Convallis), Tobaziche (A.Karwinski), and Espadín (A.Angustifolia).

Just 1000kg of agave, from the neighbouring community of San Miguel Tilquiapam, filled a single fermentation tina for this batch. The ensemble split is 60% Jabalí, 30% Tobaziche, and 10% Espadín. That yielded just 29.5 litres of finished mezcal, composed and finished in October 2021.

Production followed the ancestral style of the Minas community: agave roasted in earthen pit, milled by hand using machete and crushing mallet, fermented in this single wooden tina - 3 days warming before water was added and then a single day of wet fermentation - and finally double distilled in the famous minas clay pots from Santa Maria Atzompa.

  • pinas milled by hand for mezcal production
  • fermentation process of mezcal
  • Agave fermenting traditionally

Jabalí is the trickiest of agaves to work with. Its high saponin content causes it to foam and expand during fermentation and distillation. You can see that happening here in this unusual lunar like surface of our fermentation tina.

Note the marigold (cempasúchil) flower decoration as this batch was produced in the run up to dia de los muertos.

Multicolumn

Multicolumn

Rosario, creator of the jabalí & Tobaziche - minas mezcal

Gracias Rosario

House Tasting Notes:

Floral yet dusty on the nose. This rarely seen agave combination is full of the intrigue that so often comes with Jabalí - so hard to pin down this rascal of agaves as it jumps from sweet to sour! Grassy tones from the Karwinski complement a rich mineral backbone here that’s quintessentially Minas. The Jabalī dances over the top before fading into a dry finish. Delightful.

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