Plastic and glass in the age of Mezcal
“This brings us to the question of glass versus food-grade plastic, because both are used at José Alberto's palenque, and food-grade plastic is certainly used to store mezcal at every other palenque I’ve visited, and both are legitimate vessels for storing agave spirits.” That’s what Marcus Piña of Creador Spirits wrote in his online journal — and then he answered the question. We’ve talked a lot on this podcast about how agave spirits change when aged in glass. Marcus takes us beyond the claim to the details — as much as someone who is not a scientist can. It’s an episode of Agave Road Trip for the ages!
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 Marcus Piña of Creador Spirits.
The ten categories of ancestral mezcal
Mezcal can get very confusing for the average consumer. You’ve got regular Mezcal, Mezcal Artesenal, and Mezcal Ancestral. And then there are variations among those, including Joven, Reposado, Anejo, abocado con, destilado con, and on and on. But this, it seems, is part of the heritage of Mezcal — at least according to a 1904 book titled Diccionario de Aztequismos o Sea Catalogo de las Palabras del Idioma Nahuatl, Azteca ó Mexicano, Introducidas al Idioma Castellano Bajo Diversas Formas. (That’s Dictionary of Aztecisms, or a Catalog of Words from the Nahuatl, Aztec, or Mexican Language Introduced into the Spanish Language in Various Forms, and, yes, that is the longest title ever for a book.) In that book, there are ten categories of mezcal. Want to know what they are…?
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.