Del Maguey Ibérico Mezcal
Born from a visit by Chef José Andrés whose ThinkFoodGroup team proposed replacing the chicken breast used in Pechuga with acorn-fed free-range Ibérico ham. Distilled with wild apples plums red plantains pineapples and almonds. A harmonious collision of Oaxacan tradition and Spanish flair. Made once a year in extremely limited quantities.
Flavor Profile
Tasting
Harvest fruits and spices, star anise, cured meat, salinity
Harvest fruits and star anise with cured meat salinity
Cured Ibérico and seasonal fruit with extraordinary complexity
Spice and salinity with sublime and lasting finish
Origin
Central Valleys
Santa Catarina Minas
5900 ft
Clay and Limestone
Espadín (Agave angustifolia Haw.)
7 to 9 years
The Process
Florencio Carlos Sarmiento family palenque
Hand-cut in clay and limestone soils after 7 to 9 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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