Del Maguey Arroqueño Mezcal
A rare delicacy distilled from semi-wild agave that matures over 18 years. The family roasts the piñas in a conical pit with hot rocks and earth for three days followed by prolonged natural fermentation. Distilled in Santa Catarina Minas ancestral clay stills unchanged since pre-colonial times. Rich flavours from luscious melon to baking chocolate with a vegetal fresh greens finish.
Flavor Profile
Tasting
Ripe melon, baking chocolate, fresh green beans, terra cotta, minerality
Ripe melon and baking chocolate with fresh green notes
Fresh green beans and terra cotta with remarkable earthiness
Deep mineral with vegetal and long complex finish
Origin
Central Valleys
Santa Catarina Minas
5900 ft
Clay and Limestone
Arroqueño (Agave americana var. oaxacensis)
18 to 25 years
The Process
Luis Carlos Vásquez, Luis Carlos Martinez, Alejandra Arellanos
Hand-cut in clay and limestone soils after 18-25 years
Earthen pits lined with volcanic rock
Hand-mashed with wooden bats · open wooden vats · prolonged wild fermentation
What defines this mezcal
MINAS MEZCAL: THE NOBLE SLOW WAY
“The real value of this mezcal lies in not letting this town die. It’s like our dead: they don’t die unless they’re forgotten. We must not forget how this is done: its essence, its foundation, how it was first created.” “With a clay pot it’s slower, but nobler.”
What the Mines Left Behind
Once a hub for silver, gold and copper extraction, Santa Catarina Minas owes its name to the mines that shaped its land. Beneath its quiet streets lies volcanic-rich terrain where mineral veins once drew fortune seekers. Today, water remains its true treasure: wells and rain-harvested reservoirs sustain the clay pot stills and the agave fields that inherit the mine’s legacy.
The Learned Family of Minas
It’s unusual to find ancestral mezcaleros whose children all went to college, and even more so to see them return to the palenque. In Santa Catarina Minas, where ancestral production is guarded like a family secret, the Carlos family stands out for combining formal education with inherited knowledge. Luis, the eldest son of Luis Carlos, studied veterinary medicine; one sister trained as a chef, the other as a nurse. Each chose a different path, yet all three returned to mezcal with the same conviction their grandfather Florencio, Don Lencho, once had. That mix, education and tradition, is part of what makes Minas feel so singular, a place where cultured lives orbit around an ancient craft.
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