The tumbado way to harvest maguey (Paulo Rodriguez remix)
Last episode I talked with Linda Sullivan about the tumbado process of harvesting agave. This episode … also about tumbado, but with Paulo Rodriguez, the raicillero who brought the method back to Chacala, Jalisco! So, why two episodes about the same thing? I was maybe a bit under the influence when I recorded the episode with Paulo, forgot we’d recorded it, got home, and recorded last week’s episode with Linda. It’s a Deja Lou episode of Agave Road Trip!
Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest Raicillero Paulo Rodriguez, interpreted by Greg Rutkowski.
Harvesting maguey the “tumbado” way (Linda Sullivan remix)
I was listening to Tim McKirdy’s podcast “Mezcal’s Untold Past, Soaring Present, and Fragile Future,” and he talks about an agave harvesting process called tumbado, where you disconnect the plant from its roots and let it sit there in the field. It was said to be an old practice that had been lost. Even in the podcast, he said he only heard about this from one guy, so I thought, yeah, probably not really a thing. And then I met Paulo Rodriguez in Chacala, Jalisco.
Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest Linda Sullivan of seynasecreto and wisdom from Raicillero Paulo Rodriguez, interpreted by Greg Rutkowski.
Attack of the 50-foot picudo!
There’s a field of blue weber agave in Jalisco that SACRED has purchased. The plan is … well, a secret. But there’s a possible glitch in the secret plan and that glitch is the picudo, a weevil famous for eating agave. Are we going to let a famous weevil interrupt our plan? No — we’re going to bug out!
Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank and Greg Rutkowski of Finca 18 with wisdom from Isaac Arellanes Santos, an agricultural consultant, and interstitial fun from Agave Road Trip Poet Laureate and Official Troubadour Larry Beckett!
The 400 decisions of Tequila
I’ve spoken a lot about the 400 decisions that mezcalerxs make, but I’ve not applied that to Tequila. In an early episode of this podcast, Chava spoke about how he loved that Tequila was restricted to a single agave variety, in that it made it more interesting to see how specific techniques impacted flavor and aroma. And I was dismissive. But a few recent interactions have changed my view. It’s a years-in-the-making episode of Agave Road Trip!
Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest Linda Sullivan of seynasecreto with insights from John des Rosiers of Cambio Tequila and Rodrigo Mestas of Tequila Torrente.
How the Hijuelos Killed Tequila
There are three different natural methods agaves use to reproduce, but only one of those methods promotes genetic diversity: growing from seed. And that’s how much agave is grown around Mexico. But Blue Weber agave? The only kind of agave you can use to make Tequila? No one is growing it from seed. It’s all genetically homogenous. So what does that mean for the future of Tequila? It’s another doomsday episode of Agave Road Trip!