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Most people who enjoy spirits and cocktails know about tequila, but mezcal is far less understood. Its the mysterious stranger in the agave spir-its family. Yet, those who choose their

mezcal wisely will !nd a spirit with a compelling history and a wide range of nuances.

We turned to Houstons foremost experts on mezcal, "e Pastry Wars co-owner Bobby Heugel and general manager Francisco Terrazas (formerly of Fino in Austin) for some in-depth education.

What is the di#erence between tequila and mezcal? All tequilas are a speci!c

kind of mezcal. !e Norma O"cial

Mexicana, or NOM, which controls pro-duction and ensures compliance with the Appellation of Origin, maintains that tequila may only be made with the large, spiky blue agave Blue Weber or Agave tequilana. Additionally, it may only be produced in Jalisco (including the city of Tequila), three neighboring states (Nayarit,

Guanajuato and Michoacn) and one outlying state (Tamaulipas). About 80 percent of tequila is produced in Jalisco.

Mezcal is most often made from the medium-sized espadin agave, although other agave species may also be used, creating signi!ciant diversity in $avor. It is subject to NOM rules, too. Only eight states may use the word mezcal: Oaxaca, Guerrero, Durango, San Luis Potos, Zacatecas, Tamaulipas, Guana-juato and, most recently, Michoacan, which was just added in 2012. Tra-ditional mezcal is produced, however by families in more than 20 states in Mexico."e word mezcal originated from

words in Aztec dialects that mean cooked agave, such as mexcalli. "e drink itself evolved from the ancient fermented beverage, pulque. Mezcal was long believed to be the result of Spanish conquistadors !guring out how to make a fermentable mash that could be distilled, but recent research now suggests the ability to distill may have actually preceded the Colonial Era.

Agave plants can take years, even decades, to reach maturity, and the big-ger they are, the longer they take. "e bigger plants need more sunlight over a longer period to produce carbohydrates that can be converted to fermentable sugars.

One particularly large agave spe-cies sometimes used in mezcal, called arroqueo, can take 30 years to mature.

Harvesting the pia (the heart of the plant) kills the plant, which makes both mezcal and tequila production a bitter-sweet endeavor.

HOW MEZCAL IS MADE"is is where tequila and mezcal diverge: In mezcal production, the pias are smoked and various species of agave can be used. With tequila, just one species of agave (blue agave) is used and the pias are not smoked.

A person who makes mezcal is called a mezcalero. Historically, mezcaleros har-vest and use the pias from their own land. Making mezcal is a tradition thats been handed down from generation to generation for centuries. "e pias for mezcal are roasted/

smoked underground, a process that requires considerable care and attention. Afterward, they are milled and fer-mented. While a milling machine may be used, traditional mezcals do not use modern methods that annihilate traditional processes, such as di#users.

Di#users are used in large industrial operations to cut production time by shredding and pressure-cooking raw pias, which converts a process that takes a traditional mezcalero three to !ve days into just three to !ve hours. Because this process is rushed, the acquired cooked agave juice is often un!t for fermentation, so the juice is adjusted with the addition of chemicals,

Text and photos by Phaedra Cook

Mezcal: A Primer

IMAGE COURTESY OF DEL MAGUEY

COPITAHand-made traditional

mezcal sipping cup

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such as sulfuric acid. (Sounds delicious, right? Now you know why you want to seek small-batch mezcals produced by traditional methods.)

Artisanal mezcals use a tahona, a large stone wheel that is traditionally pulled by a donkey, horse or ox, to mill their agaves. Sometimes it is still done that way, but these days many tahonas are machine-driven.

After milling, the resulting mash is then fermented in wooden vats in the open air, which allows the entry of wild yeast. !e types of vessels used for distilla-

tion have considerable impact on the "avor. Most are distilled in durable copper stills, but when smaller clay ves-sels are used, the mezcal picks up extra minerality. Del Maguey Minero is an example of a clay-distilled spirit. Youd often see clay stills in towns that have a lot of potters, explained Heugel.

Sadly, the clay stills often break, and since theyre small, it takes a while to get much production out of them. Clay is also porous, so additionally some of the mezcal is lost to evaporation. !ats why most mezcals are distilled in copper.

WHAT ABOUT THE WORM?Most artisanal mezcal producers dont put a worm in the bottle these days,

and in fact there have been a few failed attempts to ban its inclusion. Either way, none of the mezcals discussed in this article include a worm.

When it is included, though, its a maguey worm that feeds on the agave plants, so its a symbiotic relationship. At maturity, the maguey worm is often harvested, dried, ground and mixed with salt and dried ground costeo peppers indigenous to Oaxaca into sal de gusano (worm salt). Fresh orange or pineapple slices are often served for dip-ping into the salt, which serves to tem-per the heat and smoke of the mezcal.

(Not all mezcals are strong, though. Del Maguey Vida and Mezcal Vago Mexicano, for example, are rather gentle.) !ere are many stories as to why a

maguey worm was ever included in the bottle. Some say it was a marketing ploy to perpetuate a myth that eating the worm would give the consumer special powers. Others say that it was simply to tell bottles of mezcal apart from bottles of tequila.

COMPARING MEZCALSHeugel and Terrazas walked us through a tasting of eight mezcals to help educate us on the range of production methods, "avor pro#les and types of

agave used. We started our way up in proof and complexity through three types of mezcals:

Mezcals produced using only espadin agave

Mezcals produced with multipletypes of agave

Mezcals where certain foods (such ascorn or even meats) are includedduring production to enhance "avor

!e mezcals that are blends are only that way by virtue of necessity. Mez-cal producers arent yet thinking about blending agave in terms of producing a speci#c "avor pro#le, explained Heu-gel. !eyre just using what that grows in their area. But they are slowly starting to think in terms of blending for speci#c results.

Both mezcal and tequila are made from agave plants, also known as maguey. More VSHFLoFDOO\WKHKHDUWVRIthe plants, called pias, are harvested and used. A person who harvests agave hearts is known as a jimador.

espadin agave

FRANCISCO TERRAZAS AND BOBBY HEUGEL