Agave de Cortés

Santiago Matatlán is situated thirty miles southeast of Oaxaca City and is the gateway to the Oaxacan highlands: Mezcal country! From this central location, the Cortés family has been growing, foraging, and distilling the maguey in their Zapotec community for close to 200 years. The family is the driving force behind the award-winning mezcales of El Jolgorio and Nuestra Soledad and is considered by many to be mezcal royalty.

For the family’s foundational range of mezcal, Agave de Cortés, sixth-generation Maestro Mezcalero Francisco Javier Cortés Hernández distills 100% estate-grown Espadín at the El As Palenque, the majority of which has been harvested capón (the quiote removed at maturity to concentrate additional sugars in the piña). The agave is cooked in a traditional earthen pit oven, crushed using a traditional stone tahona, fermented with local water and ambient yeast, and distilled twice in small copper pot stills. Reposado and añejo bottlings—traditional to the region but rarely seen from small palenques—are a notable addition to Agave de Cortés’s beloved joven mezcal, offering soft and elegant sipping options for newcomers and afficionados alike.

The unifying message behind this collection of mezcales is simple though demanding: Respect the land, honor the tradition, do it for the love, and the rest will take care of itself.