The Best Gifts for the Biggest Mezcal Fans
Not gonna lie: Liquor.com has an article with a similar title to this week’s episode, and I know this because their source, Nacho Jimenez, suggested that one of the art prints offered by SACRED is among the best gifts you can get for mezcal lovers. And I know this because I suddenly got flooded with orders for that print. So I wanted to offer our take on the best gifts, to see if we could get the same kind of search-engine love.
This episode of Agave Road Trip is sponsored by “My Family Recipe,” a podcast that shares cherished heirloom recipes, and the stories behind them, from voices across the world of food. Explore experiences of loss and remembering accompanied by homemade baked ziti, and chronicles of comfort and celebration paired with the perfect chocolate cake. Enjoy interviews with writers and chefs, parents and children about what is passed down along with the foods we know and love. “My Family Recipe” is a co-production of the Food52 Podcast Network and Heritage Radio Network.
This episode is sponsored in part by SACRED, a not-for-profit that helps improve lives in the rural Mexican communities where heritage agave spirits are made. Since obtaining our official not-for-profit status from the IRS in 2017, SACRED has gifted more than 32,000 tobala agave seedlings to families in rural Oaxaca – families whose cultural heritage is at risk as access to agave is getting harder and harder, due to the global explosion of interest in mezcal. Even as we continue to expand this program, we’ve also recently helped to launch a program that will build out three greenhouses in rural Jalisco, to help protect four at-risk varieties of agave and four at-risk varieties of trees, while at the same time preventing these rare wild lands in Jalisco from becoming more blue weber farms. To learn about these and other programs visit sacred.mx . If you love heritage agave spirits, consider helping us protect that cultural heritage with a tax-deductible donation this holiday season.
Hey, Chicago! There’s a gallery show going on that you won’t want to miss. It’s called “Agave!,” and it features artwork made primarily from agave fibers left over from mezcaleros in Oaxaca. I say primarily because there’s also a musical instrument that looks something like a didgeridoo but made from the heart and quiote of a madrecuishe. Buy that and record a version of our theme song with it, and we’ll feature it on this podcast! Agave! will be on display in the Chase Gallery at the Epiphany Center for the Arts from now until April 9. And every First Thursday, a different agave spirits company will be on hand to sample out some of the liquid agave art that we love so much. For details, visit epiphanychi.com. Hope to bump into you there!
Agave Road Trip is an award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. It’s hosted by Lou Bank and Chava Periban.
Episode notes
Here are the holiday gifts we suggested in this episode for the big mezcal lover in your life:
• A subscription to Maguey Melate! Your favorite mezcal enthusiast will receive every two months a package with three different small-batch agave spirits they can’t get anywhere else, sourced directly from the families who make those spirits!
• A subscription to Agave Mixtape! Every two months your loved one will receive three flasks from brands that specialize in small-batch expressions of heritage agave spirits!
• A bottle of Bacanora, the heritage agave spirit from the north of Mexico that is not nearly so well known as some of the other heritage agave spirits to the south!
• Artisan-made bottles and copitas, like those available through our friends at MezcalForLife.com! Or from the amazing Oaxacan ceramicist Omar Hernandez! Or support SACRED by purchasing the copitas, tazas, and cantaritos by David Smith!
• Chava said he’d be ready for this when we recorded the episode months ago, but … you actually have to go to Seminario 12 in Mexico City to get those tablecloths he talks about. But you can also do a tasting with Chava while you’re there! So maybe the gift is a trip to Mexico City?!
• Those kids at Mezcal Reviews have a line of T-shirts for the geekiest agave weirdos! Check them out at Agaveholics.com!
• A SACRED-branded machete, handmade by Jose Luis in Ocotlan, Oaxaca?! Yeah, why not? If they are still available, you’ll find them in the SACRED online store.
• Cactus-leather belts? For real? Maybe, maybe not. I own a couple of these and I love them, but they don’t feel like they could possibly be 100% nopal … it’s hard for me to believe there’s no plastic in there. But that green belt is sweet. Get your nopal belt here!
• I didn’t mention it on the show, ‘cause I forgot, but you should also check out Tell Tail Vintage on Instagram. Bartending rockstar Charles Joly finds the coolest old bar-related stuff and offers it up, one piece at a time, to the first person who says, “I want it!” And you will.
