As we approach September 16, we prepare to celebrate Cinco de Mayo: Mexican Independence Day! And we do so in Agave Road Trip style with lawyer and professor Dr. Juan Pablo Salazar Andreou, author of Con o Sin Derecho, about the history of Cinco de Mayo in the legal context. Take off your shoes, grab a machete, and join us for the fun!

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 Dr. Juan Pablo Salazar Andreou, with translations from Daniel Peñaloza of Chicotona Mezcal!

When most people think about Mexican drinks, they think about Tequila. But Tequila's success is really built on the vibrancy of the broader landscape of drinks and drinking in Mexico. It’s not a standalone spirit. It comes from a history and geography and culture that made possible something as compelling as Tequila. And author and researcher NC Stevens argues that is one of the leading reasons that Tequila has become so successful.

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 Nic Comrade Stevens, author of The Complete Guide to Mexican Beverages: From Atole to Zambumbia.

I was watching an episode of John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” about gas-station drugs and it felt to me like, while never mentioned explicitly, the reason to ask every guest who orders an alcoholic beverage to show their ID. And I had Linda cornered so made her talk it through with me.

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.

“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.

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.

There was a time (about a week ago) when posting to social-media that you would only drink “additive-free” was a way to say, I know Tequila. Now it feels like “milled by tahona” is the new “additive-free.” And in the same way that the additive-free-signaling actually signaled the opposite to me, the tahona-signaling does, too. And we talk about why in this 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 journalist Ted Genoways, author of Tequila Wars: Jose Cuervo and the Bloody Struggle for the Spirit of Mexico.