Maybe you’ve noticed on the back of your tequila bottles there’s a number preceded by “NOM.” It’s there on the back of your mezcal bottles, too, but it means something different. Or maybe you’ve been in an online forum where agave geeks were posting about NOM 070, or NOM 006, or NOM 199. Well, that’s another shade of different again. But all those NOMs come back to one general idea: regulations in Mexico. Join Agave Road Trip for the first of our NOM mini-series — a primer on NOMs. I can’t promise there won’t be any garden gnome jokes, but I can promise they won’t be very funny.

This episode of Agave Road Trip is also brought to you by  Diageo Bar Academy. Want to know how to build a cocktail-to-go program? What to you offer? How to you receive orders? How batch recipes are different than single-drink recipes? How to ensure you’re charging enough to make a profit? Visit DiageoBarAcademy.com for this and more! Stay informed, get inspired, and nurture connections to grow your career or your business by joining Diageo Bar Academy.

This episode of Agave Road Trip is also brought to you by JUST Egg. Made from plants, JUST Egg has zero cholesterol, it's packed with clean, sustainable protein, and it cooks and tastes just like eggs. Chef Jose Andres calls JUST Egg “mind-blowing” and Bon Appetit says it’s “so good I feel guilty eating it.” For Road-trippers who operate a restaurant, you can get a sample for free. Head to ju.st/hrn.

Agave Road Trip is a podcast that helps gringo bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. It’s hosted by Lou Bank and Chava Periban. 

Episode notes

If you want to check out that NOM spreadsheet we talk about in this episode, click here. You’ll find details in that spreadsheet about most of the NOMs we discuss, but not NOM 142 — though the relevant information about 142 is embedded in Row 11: “Distilled spirit must conform to these standards (per 100ml of alcohol unless otherwise stated).” And you’ll also find in the spreadsheet links to the NOMs themselves, so you can read all the detail. Check it out!

Episode transcript

Lou Bank [00:03:32] I am Lou Bank

 

Chava Periban [00:03:34] I am Chava Periban

 

Lou Bank [00:03:35] and this is Agave Road Trip, the podcast that helps gringo bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. Welcome to part one of our three-part mini-series focusing on the NOMs, which is not garden gnomes now.

 

Chava Periban [00:03:51] Oh, that's the little people they put on gardens to—

 

Lou Bank [00:03:56] Right, exactly. To scare away orcs.

 

Chava Periban [00:03:59] Agave Road Trip: More dad jokes than any other podcast. Thanks, Lou.

 

Lou Bank [00:04:03] You're welcome. So, this is a three-part mini-series that focuses on the NOMs because there's a lot of stuff going on right now in the world of NOMs in Mexico. And the NOMs ... what are the NOMs? Well, if you're a gringo bartender, you pick up any tequila bottle, you turn it over and you're going to see on the back the words NOM followed by some numbers and sometimes some letters. What does that mean, Chava?

 

Chava Periban [00:04:29] That if you happen to have access to the Internet and you go to tequilamatchmaker.com, you put in that number, it's going to tell you where it was made and which processes they use to make this tequila. So it's basically a fingerprint of production of each one of the brands that you consume.

 

Lou Bank [00:04:44] And it'll tell you what else was made at that same distillery.

 

Chava Periban [00:04:47] Yes, absolutely. And even sometimes by brand, they will tell you which were the little things that they changed to make the specific expression.

 

Lou Bank [00:04:56] How it's different than the other tequilas that were made at the same place.

 

Chava Periban [00:04:59] Yeah. So if you're consuming Puff Daddy's tequila, or a tequila from the Kardashians, and you're not sure if you're getting a quality product, because God knows, you go on tequilamatchmaker.com and you get to see if you have a quality product on your hands.

 

Lou Bank [00:05:11] OK, so then I pick up a bottle of mezcal, I turn it over, and I see the same thing: NOM followed by a bunch of numbers, sometimes letters. So it means the same thing? It tells me who made it?

 

Chava Periban [00:05:22] No, unfortunately, it gets more complicated. You know, the tequila kids are very well put together. I think this is the reason — and I don't want to speculate other reasons. But in mezcal, the NOM just refers to the bottler. It doesn't refer to the guys who are making the mezcal. And if you try to to research that number, you're not going to get a lot of very interesting information.

 

Lou Bank [00:05:45] But so if I'm buying a bottle of certified mezcal and it's been bottled at, let's say, Carlos' place, right? Carlos being the guy who makes the mezcal for Cruz De Fuego, I know that he also bottles— Oh, this is a good example, he also makes mezcal for Diaz Brothers Agave. But then he also bottles some stuff for Diaz Brothers that was made by our friend Fortunata Hernandez. And so you'll find Carlos' NOM on the back of that Diaz brothers bottle, even if the booze was made by Fortunato. But in that case, the booze that was made by Fortunata was still made in a certified palenque using a certified process, right?

 

Chava Periban [00:06:23] Yeah, but if you try to research this bottle by using the NOM, most likely you will never find the name of Fortunato. You will never find the type of still he was using, the type of fermentater he was using. There's not a lot of information about the producer.

 

Lou Bank [00:06:34] It's only if Rob Diaz wants to give that information to us, it's going to be on the label.

 

Chava Periban [00:06:37] He might not want you to know his producer and he can keep that information for himself.

 

Lou Bank [00:06:42] OK, so then I pick up a bottle of bacanora, right? That's a certified agave spirits that has its own denomination of origin that's made up in Sonora. I pick up this bottle and I turn it over and I see another NOM: NOM168. So is that the same thing as mezcal or is it the same thing as tequila?

 

Chava Periban [00:07:03] How? How can this be so freaking confusing? I don't know how code can change so much. No, it's not the same as either of those. What happens is, this refers to the specific set of rules that establish what can be called bacanora.

 

Lou Bank [00:07:17] OK, so there are specific rules that tell you what bacanora is. And we know there are specific rules that tell you what mezcal is. So there's a NOM for mezcal, there's a NOM for tequila, there's a NOM for bacanora. If I look on the bottle of bacanora, it tells me that that is NOM 168. If I look at a bottle of mezcal, even though I know that the NOM that defines mezcal is 070, that's not on the bottle, right?

 

Chava Periban [00:07:41] Yeah, OK.

 

Lou Bank [00:07:43] But  it's not like booze is the only thing that has these NOMs, right? So what  does this mean? What does the NOM in this particular sense mean?

 

Chava Periban [00:07:53] This gets very interesting. And if I get too much into the weeds, please stop me. And I know you will. But it's not only practical. So, say we were talking electronics, or say we were talking cars. A lot of normativities, they exist to ensure that those products are not going to kill you.

 

Lou Bank [00:08:12] It's health and safety regulations.

 

Chava Periban [00:08:15] Exactly. If you crashed, you have a certain percentage of chances of surviving the crash. And  if a car meets the standards set in the NOM, it's allowed to go into the market. As easy as that. The thing here, when you start talking about heritage products, that are connected to geographic indications (like denominations of origin), these rules are not only trying to tell the public or the buyers of the world that they're safe, but also that they are unique.

 

Lou Bank [00:08:45] OK, so for instance, there is a NOM, is it 142 that defines what alcohol is in Mexico?

 

Chava Periban [00:08:51] Well, not what it is, but that it's most likely not going to kill you if you don't drink a bunch of it.

 

Lou Bank [00:08:58] Right. So all alcohol that is made in Mexico has to conform to NOM 142, which defines how much ester is allowed...

 

Chava Periban [00:09:06] and how much ethanol. Just super basic stuff.

 

Lou Bank [00:09:10] Right. And so then you get NOM 006, which defines what tequila is. And it says, OK, not only does this conform to NOM 142, but also it has to be made from Blue Weber agave and no other agave.

 

Chava Periban [00:09:25] Right. And that's what I was saying about it being unique, it has specific characteristics that make it a big deal.

 

Lou Bank [00:09:32] OK, so — and I promise this will get interesting. But so the reason we wanted to do this mini-series is because there's an earthquake going on right now around NOM 199. So NOM142 defines alcohol in general, safety and health regulations for alcohol in Mexico, right? NOM 070 defines what mezcal is, NOM 006 defines what tequila is, NOM 168 defines what bacanora is.  Then what does NOM 199 define, Chava?

 

Chava Periban [00:10:07] It's like your line of defense to specify the characteristics of certain spirits that don't have a geographic indication or denomination of origin. So there's a bunch of examples of this and we're going to go into detail about this in our third episode. But it's just the most basic set of rules to be able to use certain names for alcohol in Mexico. That it in a nutshell.

 

Lou Bank [00:10:35] And you can go to the our website, AgaveRoadTrip.com. We're going to have a link to a spreadsheet that I created that has all of the different NOMs that relate to Mexican spirits and some of the spirits imported into Mexico. The spreadsheet puts them side by side to explain how they are defined by their individual NOMs. But, you know, if you look at NOM 199, even though charanda which is an aguardiente -- it's made from sugarcane, made in a very specific region in Michoacan -- even though it has to conform to NOM 142, there is no NOM specific to charanda and NOM 199 explains, OK, this is what makes charanda not just safe, but also makes it unique.

 

Chava Periban [00:11:24] And I think something really important—

 

Lou Bank [00:11:27] and comiteco is covered by NOM 199, pulque...

 

Chava Periban [00:11:28] A lot of different alcohols: wine, brandy, aguardient. I think something that is very important for people to understand is, this is not like the American constitution, you're not trying to think of what the founding fathers thought when they created these NOMs. These NOMs are very recent. They are—

 

Lou Bank [00:11:46] Yeah, but actually, I think in this particular case, we are thinking about the founding fathers. The centerpiece of these three episodes is an interview that we had with Alberto Esteban Marina.

 

Chava Periban [00:11:58] Yeah, the founding father of NOM 199

 

Lou Bank [00:12:03] Alberto was, for six years, during ...  which administration?

 

Chava Periban [00:12:07] Enrique Pena Nieto

 

Lou Bank [00:12:13] So Alberto, under Pena Nieto, was the director general for all NOMs in Mexico, and he wrote NOM 199 specifically, he said, to try to put definitions to all of these spirits that didn't have definitions.

 

Chava Periban [00:12:32] That didn't have a name and therefore struggled in the market. And something that was amazing on interviewing him is that, if there's a guy that understands code and normativities in the broader spectrum — because he worked with electronics, buildings, everything you can think of — this guy was in charge of it. And we tried to pick his brain a lot. It was an amazing interview. And we asked him, I think this is a great way to finish this and wrap it up. It's, How would you have done the whole regulation of mezcal, if you had a blank check to start with? So let's listen to him.

 

Alberto Esteban Marina [00:13:04] My perception is that if we were to remove all the press and regulations, the way I would have done it if I were to start from scratch, is that the generic name for all agave spirits would have been mezcal. And then, by geographic zones, you would have had, from Tequilla, it's mezcal. From Oaxaca, it's mezcal. From Puebla, it's mezcal, and all the way down to municipalities. That is the way wine works. Wine, regardless if it was made in New Zealand, US, Mexico, or Spain, wine is always a grape ferment, and then if you want to get more specific, you start naming regions. The Spaniard wine has the denomination of origin la Rioja, because it has special characteristics. Just start with a generic product and then you start making it more and more specific, getting closer to the characteristics that make this product special.

 

Lou Bank [00:13:57] That, you know, I got to say, Chava, that sounds like the world I want to live in. It's like whiskey. You can make whiskey anywhere. Wine, you can make wine anywhere. But then there's this thing called scotch. It's a very special kind of whiskey that you make in a very special way in a very special region.

 

Chava Periban [00:14:19] It's like taco's. It's like our episode about tacos. Everybody can make tacos, but if you make great tacos, then people are going to come to you. People are going to know you're special. And then if there was NOM that recognized you to be the ultimate taco maker with this special recipe, then you will make the people, you know, notice you because you're very special. That's how this works, right? That is how it should work.

 

Lou Bank [00:14:43] Yeah, how it should be. It's the world you and I want to live in, but we don't live in it. And so, as a result, we've got these NOMs that define ... well, actually, even if it was the world we lived in, in theory, you'd still have these NOMs in Mexico to define all these other municipalities. To define what an Ixcateco is, what a Minero is. Which would be great. You used to be able to say that all tequila is mezcal, but not all mezcal is tequila, because tequila was a kind of mezcal. Now it's not. And it's so confusing for the consumer. .

 

Chava Periban [00:15:21] Yeah, it is. And it doesn't make any sense that it's difficult because it's not only confusing for the consumer, but it's also very confusing for the producer. And that's why mezcal to this day, it's only one percent of what tequila is in terms of sales. I think this confusion is one of the main reasons the sdales of mezcal are so much smaller than tequila. So let's wrap this up, because I  believe that for the first time in our lives, we've made a good job about defining something. So I congratulate you. It was fast. It was painless. It was slightly not boring. And I think we have more to talk about NOMs in the next two episodes.

 

Lou Bank [00:15:52] I'll catch you in episode number two, Chava.