Latest Agave Podcast Episodes
Horse Piss, Arm Pits, and Other Mezcal Additives
Agave Road Trip - July 04, 2024 06:00 - 26 minutesI like to talk about the 400 decisions that a mezcalerx makes that determines how an agave spirit tastes. But there are other elements beyond their decisions … natural elements that find their way into the process … that also have an impact on what goes into the bottle. We’re taking shots in thi...
When Did Tequila Stop Being Fun?
Agave Road Trip - June 27, 2024 10:02 - 22 minutesIt’s all in the eye of the beholder, I know. But when I think about what Tequila was back in the ‘80s and ‘90s … it was a catalyst for fun. I had a coworker who thought “tequila” was Spanish for “dancing on tables.” And I still see that, though mainly in Mexico. Here in the USA, it’s become so s...
Yes, There Can Be Additives in Mezcal
Agave Road Trip - June 20, 2024 06:00 - 23 minutesIn the past several weeks, I have seen in numerous online forums the misstatement that Mezcal can’t have additives. And the misstatement that those additives can only be fresh fruits and raw turkey. So this episode is 100% just so I can post a simple link the next time I see that error pop up ag...
A $30 Chicken Dinner Is a Bargain
Agave Road Trip - June 13, 2024 06:00 - 31 minutesJohn Douglass of the multi-award-winning Louisville bar Pretty Decent is renowned for his hospitality. But he got a bit hot under the collar when one of his favorite customers complained about a $30 chicken dinner at a fancy spot around the corner. We break that chicken down — and your free chip...
You Can’t Recycle That Bottle
Agave Road Trip - June 06, 2024 06:00 - 20 minutesRoad-tripper Nathan Mealey checked in to ask, “How do you if a brand is ethical?” So I’ve started having that conversation with a number of people, coming at the question from different angles. This first answer considers packaging — specifically glass bottles. We think of those glasses as recyc...
Making Beer With Agave (And Sotol)
Agave Road Trip - May 30, 2024 06:00 - 19 minutesHow do you turn 24,000 acres of wild maguey Lamparillo and dasylirion into beer? You bring Mike Schallau of is/was brewing to Durango to hang out with Sergio Garnier of Mezcal Ultramundo! Mike has been making beer since 2018 with agave I’ve brought him from Mexico, to fundraise for SACRED. This ...
Cocktails as Cultural Bridges
Agave Road Trip - May 23, 2024 06:00 - 44 minutesI’ve heard a lot about how bartenders use cocktails as a way to introduce their guests to Mexican spirits like Mezcal, Tequila, Raicilla, Bacanora, and Sotol. And lately, I’ve also heard a little about using those same cocktails to introduce guests to the communities those spirits come from – tu...
What Is the Connection Between Mezcal, Mexican Food, and Museums?
Agave Road Trip - May 16, 2024 06:00 - 25 minutesThe first time I saw tascalate on a menu it was at Itanoni in Oaxaca. I immediately fell in love with the traditional drink. But finding a second cup – particularly at home in Chicago – was a lost cause. But now, years later, Ximena N. Beltran Quan Kiu has written an article about how tascalte h...
Maybe That 12-Year-Old Agave Is Only Five Years Old…
Agave Road Trip - May 09, 2024 06:00 - 26 minutesI was having a conversation with Grace Gonzalez of Tequila El Mayor and she said something that brought into focus a thought that’s been bumping around in my head: We talk a lot about the ages of the agaves that are used to make Mezcal and Tequila. But there’s really no mechanism to verify that....
Blind Tasting With...Dan (Mezcal Room)
Maestros del Mezcal Podcast - May 08, 2024 20:12 - 24 minutes ★★★★★ - 38 ratingsWelcome to the first Blind Tasting With... Episode; In this series we will try to understand the processes that different people go through when decifering what is in their copita during a blind tasting.
Mezcal Moto-Rally!
Agave Road Trip - May 02, 2024 06:00 - 46 minutesFour wheels good! Two wheels more good? For the last few years, Nick Barreiro has organized a moto-rally for small group of motorcycle-and-Mexico enthusiasts. And while motorcycles aren’t my speed, I know they work for plenty of gringx bartenders, and I love this whole different way to take in t...
What Can Cultivated Meat Teach Us About Mezcal?
Agave Road Trip - April 25, 2024 06:00 - 28 minutesIn his New York Times op-ed about the imploding dream of cultivated meat, Joe Fassler writes, “[It] was an embodiment of the wish that we can change everything without changing anything. We wouldn’t need to rethink our relationship to Big Macs and bacon. We could go on believing that the world w...
Are the Best Bottles of the Year the Best Bets for Your Bar?
Agave Road Trip - April 18, 2024 13:05 - 24 minutesVinepair, Wine Enthusiast, Esquire … seems like every publication these days has their suggestions for what you should have been drinking over the past year. Maybe what you should be purchasing as holiday gifts. But these lists can also serve as sales tools for gringx bartenders! It’s a DIY epis...
This Bottle Protects Jaguars
Agave Road Trip - April 11, 2024 06:00 - 25 minutesWe’ve done a lot of episodes about the importance of biodiversity, but usually we’re talking about plants. Sometimes insects. Bats, on occasion. So when we got an email from the gang at Alma de Jaguar Tequila about preserving this apex predator, I thought, yeah, let’s really sink our teeth into ...
Are Agave Straws Really Better Than Plastic?
Agave Road Trip - April 04, 2024 06:00 - 21 minutesA trend that’s emerged in the past decade are these drinking straws that are being promoted as made from agave fibers — the agave fibers being a byproduct of the process for making Tequila and Mezcal. The straws are marketed as biodegradable. But I think — emphasis on “think” — that these straws...
How to Pair Mezcal With Food
Agave Road Trip - March 28, 2024 06:00 - 33 minutesI’m seeing a lot more restaurants expanding their Mezcal selections, and a lot more events pairing Mezcal with food. So what do you eat when you drink Mezcal? I asked a bunch of industry folks that question over the last several months, then coerced food, science, and nature journalist Rowan Jac...
Why Brands Don’t Certify Their Mezcal
Agave Road Trip - March 21, 2024 06:00 - 31 minutesSince I first met Sergio Garnier, before he launched Mezcal Ultramundo, we’ve debated about the relative merits of certifying your agave spirits as Mezcal. We decided it was time to record our disagreement. It’s a what-side-are-you-on episode of Agave Road Trip! Agave Road Trip is a critically...
The Secret Origin of Bull-skin Fermentation in Mezcal
Agave Road Trip - March 14, 2024 06:00 - 15 minutesThe fist time I tasted an agave spirit fermented in the skin of a bull, it was all anyone was talking about in Oaxaca. I tasted it at three mezcalerias, and all three bottles were made by Amando Alvarado Alvarez in Santa Maria Ixcatlan, Oaxaca. I made my way out to visit him a few months later, ...
All Bino Mexcal Is Mezcal but Not All Mezcal Is Bino Mexcal
Agave Road Trip - March 07, 2024 07:00 - 25 minutesDid the small family producers in Tequila, Jalisco, eat the metaphorical and literal lunch of the big producers in Guanajuato and San Luis Potosi at the 1893 World’s Fair? It’s a What If? episode of Agave Road Trip! Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gr...
Rowan Jacobsen Went to Mexico and All I Got Was This Podcast
Agave Road Trip - February 29, 2024 07:00 - 24 minutesI got obsessed with Rowan Jacobsen when American Terroir hit bookstores in 2010, and was recently re-obsessed when his podcast “Wild Chocolate” dropped into my feed. So I reached out and he noted he was writing a sustainability feature about Mezcal for Bloomberg’s Businessweek. That article drop...
Diana Pinzón - Defense of Endemic Agave in Mexico - Questions for California Agave Council
Maestros del Mezcal Podcast - February 24, 2024 16:47 - 43 minutes ★★★★★ - 38 ratingsWe interview Diana Pinzón, a biologist, conservationist and co-founder of Zinacantan mezcal. Diana poses 10 questions for the California Agave Council and expresses her concern for protecting endemic agave in Mexico and the bio-cultural heritage they represent.
Food Journalism Is Still Journalism
Agave Road Trip - February 22, 2024 07:00 - 36 minutesHow do you find reliable sources for information about adult beverages? This is a multi-billion dollar industry, there should be reliable places to learn about trends. But I keep seeing significant errors in articles about agave spirits — which leads me to question what I’m reading about other s...
The Problem With the InsideHook Article About 2023 Tequila Sales
Agave Road Trip - February 15, 2024 07:00 - 28 minutesA couple weeks ago, I threw the Washington Post under the bus for failing to recognize that food journalism is — or should be — journalism. This week I throw myself under the bus for an article I wrote for InsideHook. Not because it fails as journalism — I’ll let someone else make that claim. Bu...
Why Don’t More Mezcaleros Own Their Brands?
Agave Road Trip - February 08, 2024 07:00 - 24 minutesWhy are there so few Mezcal and Tequila brands owned by the people who produce them? When I try to rattle off the names of brands of Mezcal and Tequila that are owned by the people who actually make those spirits, it’s more of a clunk than a rattle. Why is that? And why is that important? It’s a...
The Problem With the Washington Post Article About Mezcal
Agave Road Trip - February 01, 2024 07:00 - 37 minutesDo you want to preserve the biodiversity of agaves? Or do you want to preserve agaves in the wild? Because those are two different things, often at odds with one another. And you can’t have that conversation without talking about the reasons for the disappearing wild lands in Mexico. But that’s ...
How to Take Your Pet on a Road Trip to Mexico
Agave Road Trip - January 25, 2024 07:00 - 35 minutesHeather Morse traveled to Mexico City with her husband, Aaron. And her dog. And her cat. By car. From Las Vegas. If you’ve ever wanted cross the border in a car, with your pets, and make it back home with everything intact, this might be the episode you’ve been waiting for. Agave Road Trip is ...
Leave Tequila Alone!
Agave Road Trip - January 18, 2024 07:00 - 45 minutesIn a Wine Enthusiast op-ed titled “Is it time to leave Tequila alone?,” spirits and cocktail writer Kara Newman asks, “When it comes to pushing tequila’s boundaries, how far is too far?” Now, I tend to be a “head to the endzone” kind of guy, so I’ve brought in Ana Rita García Lascurain, founder ...
The Cultural Heritage of Agave Syrup
Agave Road Trip - January 11, 2024 07:00 - 38 minutesThere’s Mrs. Butterworth’s, and then there’s fine Vermont maple syrup. And the same extremes exist for agave syrup. But here’s the thing: the artisanal version of agave syrup has this whole cultural heritage aspect to it. And you’ve probably only been able to access Mrs. Agaveworth’s. Until now!...
The Great Espadin Investigation - Part 2 - Genetics - Dr. Jorge Nieto Sotelo
Maestros del Mezcal Podcast - January 05, 2024 13:33 - 42 minutes ★★★★★ - 38 ratingsWe continue our investgation into the plant known as Espadin in Oaxaca; This time following genetic trail. Dr. Jorge Nieto Sotelo from UNAM in Mexico City talks to us about Agave angustifolia and it's possible origins among other things.
Wild vs Farmed: Last Pulque Standing
Agave Road Trip - January 04, 2024 07:00 - 24 minutesGonzalo Alvarez is pursuing his master’s degree in pulque. Ivan Saldana has his doctorate in agave. Both tell me that farmed agave produces better pulque than wild agave. But on trips through Nuevo Leon, Cohuila, and Hidalgo, three pulque producers said the exact opposite. So … what’s the truth?...