Mezcal, Sierra Negra

• Mezcal produced in San José Rio Minas, Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca
• Maestros Mezcaleros Crispín Aguirre Navarro & Rosario Antonia Cruz
• 100% Sierra Negra (Agave americana var. oaxacensis Gentry)
• Cooked in a conical earthen pit oven
• Ground using a traditional stone wheel mill (tahona)
• Fermented using ambient yeast in open-air wooden vats (tinas)
• Distilled twice using a traditional clay pot still
• The nose offers a vague barnyard vibe with notes of wet clay, damp sawdust, goose down, mace, buttered cornbread, caramel, and candied yam; stunning texture on the palate brings waves of fresh herbs, prickly pear, cypress and sage, cacao, white pepper… and a hint of mothballs, but in a really good, nostalgic way
• Rested one year in glass before bottling
• 627 liters produced in 2023
• 49% ABV (alcohol may change from batch to batch)

Selected enthusiastically by the Skurnik team during a recent visit to Oaxaca, this batch is an absolute stunner. San José Rio Minas is a small community, about 5000 feet above sea level, within the Mixteca Alta region of Oaxaca, most known among mezcal aficionados for its continued use of ancestral clay pot distillation. Here, second generation maestro mezcalero Crispín Aguirre and his partner and wife, Rosario Antonia Cruz, have recently joined in operating the palenque of Juan Aguirre, Crispín’s father. The mezcal the Aguirre-Cruz family produces feels familiar—a benchmark of the dense, textured, caramel-laden profile distinct to clay distillation—while remaining vibrantly unique, offering wave after wave of fresh herbs and joyous barnyard funk—a delightful surprise from this Agave americana varietal. Like all distillates from La Medida, it is both an outstanding introduction for newcomers and a thrilling jolt to the system for jaded mezcal explorers.