Today is, my eyes, today is an exciting day we are heading into mezcal country with Experience
Mezcal and our guide Dari we are going to find out how mezcal is made, taste mezcal,
find out how pulque is made, taste pulque and so much more, we are super, super excited.
They're just firing up the wood fire to roast some agave.
The smoke is crazy.
These are the agave plants before going in, there is so much smoke we cannot see a thing
so we're going to hit the road and come back here later when they're roasting away.
So we've head up into the hills and we're at a small palenque or distillery, it's family
run, it's been here for about 30 years and we've just had a look at where they're roasting
agave right now so they roast them in hot, hot, hot, hot, hot rocks for about 5 to 10
days.
So this is about 48-49%.
Woah.
So this is roasted agave, I've just torn a piece off and it's really sweet.
Like a more complex sugarcane almost.
So we are just trying a taste of the tepeztate mezcal this agave plant has to grow for 25
to 30 years before it can be harvested.
That one.
So it is super special.
We've heard that you kiss the mezcal so mezcal is different to its cousin tequila, tequila
you normally shot back right, tequila is made from the blue agave plant specifically.
I think you shoot bad tequila.
Oh okay.
Oh but sip good tequila.
But that's what people know of it.
Sip good tequila and you shot bad tequila, Dari prefers not to drink tequila at all.
Mezcal all the way.
Trying these mezcals is amazing, they're so soft and the flavour, the difference in them
all, the flavour profiles, it's not just a big kick of alcohol even though they're upwards
or around 50% alcohol, they're just incredible.
And look at these crazy ones, this one has a mint thing in it, this one's got a snake
in it, this one's got marajuana in it and this one's got a giant scorpion in it.
We're learning all about the process of making the mezcal but as we stop at different places
we're going to see different stages not necessarily in the order that it's done, so I don't quite
know how I'm going to show that but what I might do is a little montage now.
So that's the process, I'm right at the start of the tour as I understand it's obviously
grown, harvested, roasted in the fire, sat to ferment, then they mash it and then it
goes into the distil and then alcohol is born.
So at Roberto's palenque we've been trying mezcals which are just made with one type
of agave so we've tried tobala which is this agave plant, we've tried karwinski which is
this long skinny agave which grows upwards, we've tried espadine which is that massive
one there and we've tried tepeztate which is this one over here a lot of the big distilleries
actually mix and match their agave so we're pretty lucky to try just single types.
Full points for memory on the plant names.
This is brilliant being on a tour like this because we're learning so, so much about these
alcohols.
We're now stopping for pulque which you would have seen in our vlog maybe 4 or 5 vlogs ago
in Puebla, Puebla and we loved it.
So this is kind of like the beer of agave, I'm not sure if that's the correct way to
describe it but it's how I'm going to describe it, so it's about 4-5% alcoholic beverage
from agave.
This is as fresh as fresh gets aguamile from the agave plant this morning.
So this is how the pulque is harvested so you basically have to climb into the agave
and then you scoop out the heart of the plant and then the water or the aguamile is in there
and becomes this.
Oh my gosh so the pulque that we had in Puebla was very viscous-y, quite thick a little bit
gluggy the Oaxacan pulque is so fresh, it is sweet, it's not viscous-y at all it's the
consistency of water and it is so delicious.
Will that not be very alcoholic because it was collected this morning?
It's around 2%.
Ahh so they let it ferment after they harvest it to make it more alcoholic is that right?
Oh it's so good I could just drink this in 2 seconds!
2 litres of pulque to take home.
Takeaway!
Dari has ordered us a feast we've got atole so we've got champurrado which is the chocolate
based atole so it's like a corn dough drink.
And then we have the blanco atole which is the neutral plain flavour.
We've got memelitas with Oaxacan string cheese, they are amazing.
Costillo which are ribs and they're cooked in a tomato sauce, we've got tortillas and
we've got a cheese which has been popped onto the grill and it is incredible and finally
we have the Oaxacan chilli, chile de agua and it's filled with all sorts of stuff almonds,
tomato, raisins, it looks epic.
Wow, Experience Mezcal is kicking goals today, that lunch incredible, wow.
Next stop another, where are we going next?
Another mezcal palenque.
More mezcal.
No, not a hope in hell.
We're in Matatlan which produces 95-98% of the world's mezcal, time for the next tasting.
We've come back to where we were this morning where it was really smoky.
Now they've cut up the agave, the fire is burning, they'll pile all the agave on top,
cover that to suit for 4 or 5 days, after it's roasted it gets put in here and ground
up by Mr Horse.
It's ground up, then put in the fermenting tanks before being distilled.
That is the whole process of how they make mezcal.
Incredible, look at this guy what a worker.
There's 14 tonnes of agave, that we have to put onto there.
I won't be helping very much because I'm useless compared to these guys but wow they're really
heavy.
That is hard work I don't envy those guys the amount of stages to make mezcal is just
mind blowing.
Incredible.
Time for the next stop.
This next stop is nothing to do with mezcal it's just a humongous, [bang] woooah, it's
just a humongous 2000 year old tree.
El Tule in the town of Santa Maria del Tule.
Amazing.
And we're actually done, what a day.
Wow, Experience Mezcal that was amazing.
Amazing!
Hopefully that all came together well we definitely missed out quite a lot of stuff because we
were learning and seeing so much so if you have any questions about what you saw chuck
them below.
There is so much value in doing something like that because an experience like that
you just learn so much and it just means that when we next go to a bar for example and order
mezcal we're informed, we know what we're asking for, what we're tasting, how it's been
made and it just makes the experience so much better.
So worth it.
It was so cool.
Do it, if you're in Oaxaca.
Details below.
Amazing.
Thanks so much for watching.
We hope we've inspire you to eat and explore like a traveler, not a tourist.
Adios!