Destilado de Agave, Cupreata, 'Emiliano'

• Destilado de Agave produced in La Providencia, Guerrero
• Maestro Mezcalero Emiliano Cerros
• Produced from 100% Papalote (A. cupreata)
• Cooked in an earthen pit oven; milled with a small mechanical shredder
• Fermented in white pine (ayacahuite) tanks using spring water
• Distilled twice using traditional copper pot stills
• Sweet carrot, pawpaw, baked apple, umeshu—general orchard fruits all over; dry twigs, kids’ sandbox, fresh nutmeg, faint aroma of an empty swimming pool, and choco pies
• 45.3% ABV

Fascinating in its complexity, this example of Agave cupreata leans into the flavors of fall and harvest with aromatics full of root vegetables and orchard fruit, stone fruit and damp soil. The variety’s trademark note of children’s chewable vitamin C tablets is here skewing more vitamin than sweetener, like chewing PEZ salvaged from the garden. It would be a challenging tasting experience if this range of competing flavors wasn’t so carefully structured and so enjoyable to explore.