Del Maguey is deeply dedicated to the biodiversity and rich cultural heritage of Oaxaca. Our sustainability blog will provide a first-hand look into the processes of Del Maguey and our commitment to leaving a positive impactful footprint in Oaxaca. Our mission is to offer a clear understanding of Del Maguey’s core values and commitment to sustainability.
Roasted agave is one of those simple ideas that explains a whole world: take the heart of an agave plant, cook it low and slow, and what starts as tough, starchy fiber turns into something fragrant, sweet, and deeply comforting. It’s also the origin point for...
If you care about sustainable mezcal, you’re really asking a bigger question: can mezcal keep thriving without exhausting the landscapes and communities that make it possible? Mezcal isn’t a factory product. It’s a living chain of ecology, culture, agriculture, and time—because agaves take years (often many...
If you want to truly understand mezcal, not just drink it, start with the label. For bartenders and agave lovers, the mezcal label is more than a pretty design or a trendy mezcal pink label on the back bar. It’s a compact technical sheet that tells...
Initiative In May 2023, Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal partnered with the organization Grower´s First, and their volunteer network of physicians and dentists from the organization Yu´u Ba´a. In Sto. Domingo Albarradas, aside from offering medical and dental services, the Grower´s First volunteers were trained in...
Adobe and Rammed Earth In October 2022 and March 2023, Del Maguey held two construction workshops in the palenque of Luis Carlos Vasquez and his son Luis Carlos Martinez in Sta. Catarina Minas. They are the producers of Minero, Pechuga, Ibérico, Arroqueño. The workshops were...
Computer and Tablet Donations: Over the years Del Maguey Singe Village Mezcal has run an ongoing donation program for the communities of our Zapotec and Mixtec family of producers to receive new and secondhand computers and tablets from bartenders and supporters from around the world. It is...
Tepextate Flower Del Maguey’s wild agave project began years ago with a small nursery in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, that produced a few hundred Tobala, Tepextate, and Espadin plants from seed with the objective of renewing these special natural resources from which we produce artisanal mezcal. In...
Beekeeping in Rancho Las Milpas: Del Maguey’s beekeeping team continued its work this year in Rancho Las Milpas. The prospect of beekeeping has been welcomed warmly by our partner producer and his family. Don Anastasio, Del Maguey’s maestro mezcalero, his three sons, Rigoberto, Abel, and...
Despite the fact that the pandemic shut down access to some of the villages we work in for most of 2020, towards the end of the year, and with much precaution, we were able to progress our reforestation efforts in the Albarradas region of Oaxaca....
A Sense of Place: As a cook and bartender, I am naturally attracted to smell and taste, sensations of the palate. ...
As Gabe and I drove into San Luis del Rio on a long dirt road we were surrounded by the staggered mountains, lined with a patchwork of wild and cultivated agave. It was large, regal, and much vaster than I had expected. There was an...
Finding My Rhythm: I slept in Marcos’ 2nd floor flat above the kitchen in an empty room on a petate, or a woven palm mat with a rolled poncho I had bought at a mercado as a pillow. We woke up every morning around sunrise....
In our headquarter village of Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, Del Maguey helps support the local ecology of flowering plants, including a wide spectrum of wild agave, through beekeeping....
Environmental responsibility is one of the central tenets that anchors our impact philosophy....
Oaxaca, Mexico has a rich linguistic and cultural diversity, with 16 different indigenous language families and more than 50 different languages, a large part of which is at serious risk of disappearance....
Limited Edition Bottle – Del Maguey Chichicapa Boca del Cerro In the spring of 2005, Del Maguey founder Ron Cooper and local farmers planted a hectare of young espadin in Teotitlan del Valle. Placed on ancient terraces at the step of the Zapotec village’s sacred mountain,...
Deforestation: Since 2015, increased rates of deforestation have been reported in Oaxaca, rates generally attributed to 1) Mining 2) Agriculture 3) Livestock 4) Forest fires 5) Plagues and 6) Illegal logging....
Del Maguey has taken the lead with Heifer Project International and The Pernod Ricard Foundation to extend a program named Replicando Oportunidades (Replicating Opportunities) in Del Maguey producing villages....
We at Del Maguey are deeply honored and humbled by the overwhelming acceptance and appreciation of Mezcal VIDA by the trade since we first brought this liquid art to the world in 2010....
Scaling Up While Preserving Tradition: In November of 2016 Del Maguey broke ground on a project to scale Paciano Cruz Nolasco’s palenque in San Luis del Rio without compromising the traditional methods of production. ...
New Land Creation Project: Del Maguey needed to implement a different system in San Luis del Rio due to its remote location and limitations on the banks of the Rio Hormiga Colorada River....
Access to education and information is a basic human right, one that has been denied or seriously impeded in many Oaxacan communities over time....
In April, 2017, the Consejo Regulador de Mezcal (CRM) implemented the first revision of the Norma Oficial Mexicana 070 (NOM 070) since the inception of the Denomination of Origin of Mezcal in 1995....
Del Maguey Donates a Pipa/Water Tanker Truck Providing increased access to potable water in partner communities is one of Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal’s driving principles. In many of the communities we work in, there are pockets of the town or village that still lack access...
Since its founding in 1995, Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal has operated out of the village of Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca....
Biological diversity is crucial to a successful future for agave species. There are two different ways in which agave can reproduce. The first is through hijuelos, or clonal shoots, that result in plants that are genetic equivalent of the mother plant. An agave can produce...
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