Destilado de Agave, 'San Martinero - Oaxaca'

• Destilado de agave produced in Ejutla, Oaxaca
• Maestros Mezcaleros Apolonio & Simeón Ramirez
• 100% San Martinero (Agave karwinskii)
• Cooked in a traditional pit oven made of earth and stone
• Milled using a stone tahona
• Fermented using natural yeast in huamuche wood vats (tinas) for 5–12 days
• Distilled once using a copper pot still with external condenser (refrescadera)
• Rested over 1 year before bottling
• Savory aromas of almond skin, celery seed, roasted sweet potato, and a touch of wet bark dance with joyful notes of white chocolate, orange blossom, and fresh guava with a firm grounding of slate and iron lending a mineral backbone to the proceedings
• 58% ABV (ABV may vary batch to batch)

Another gem from the Ramirez family! Anyone who remembers the Tobaziche they shared with us four years back will be understandably thrilled to see this arrival. Icons for their work within the local tradition, their mezcales have been exported to the US under other labels, but Erick Rodriguez (Pal’alma) was the first to bottle their work commercially. The local style in Ejutla produces mezcal after just a single pass on the still, using what is known as a refrescadera—a hybrid condenser column featuring a couple of plates (platos) which yields a silky and dense mezcal at a higher ABV.

San Martinero is a rare subvariety of the beloved Agave karwinskii species. While many consider Agave karwinskii to be emblematic of the Ejutla region, San Martinero has a uniquely tiny geographic footprint, preferring to grow close to water (in this case, a small river in Oaxaca’s southern mountains). The name refers to its distinct place of origin, but today it can be found in Ejutla as well as Santa Catarina Minas, a short drive to the north; it is often misidentified and lumped in with other more well-known Agave karwinskii varieties like Cuishe or Tobaziche. At an elevation of 1360 meters above sea level, Apolonio and Simeón harvest San Martinero at a maturity of thirteen to seventeen years, and their single-pass distillation style leaves an abundance of complexity and sensation concentrated in the mezcal. The result stands among the most compelling examples of the species we’ve tasted to date—and trust us, that’s really saying something.