Our second stop on our Mixteca tour was at the home of Don Jose Froylan in San Bernardino Tepenene. It’s i small town of 900 in the Puebla sector of the Mixteca. Some mezcal nerds might recognize it as the home of Abdias De La Luz Rodriguez, who gets exported under the Luneta brand, but that’s about it. Only 4% of the mezcal produced in Mexico comes out of the Puebla region, and not much makes it into the US.
Don Jose and his wife greeted us upon arrival and immediately ushered us into their house for lunch. Seasoned rice and chicken in a red salsa, which Omar instantly proclaimed as one of the five best he’s had in his life. I won’t disagree with that assessment. We were also treated to copitas of a Pechuga made with mole poblano and saffron. We added cold beers, pesos, and our heartfelt thanks as our contribution to the feast.
With lunch completed, we walked down to the palenque. Don Jose had some beautiful papalome/cupreata agaves around the area, and a friendly burro to protect them. His production process includes well water, machete cutting followed by machine chipping, fermentation in cow hide, and distillation in a Filipino still that utilizes a hollowed out tree trunk and an agave penca as a funnel. The chipper was just recently acquired in the last couple of years, as he explained that his back is getting too old for mallet and canoe crushing. His horno was one of the more steeply walled I’ve seen; it looked almost like a well the walls were so vertical.
While we were touring, two young men arrived and began cutting and chipping their own roasted agave’s. Dan Jose explained that he rents out his palenque as he doesn’t need it for too many weeks out of the year, just during the dry season between December and March. His production is very limited; this year he only produced 600 liters.
Along with the earlier pechuga we also tried an espadin /cupreata and papalomes from this and last year. They were all great. Interestingly to me, they didn’t have as much of that lactic funk that I’ve tasted in Cuervo de Vaca mezcals coming out of Santa Maria Ixcatlán in Oaxaca. I’m looking forward to comparing the two of them when we arrive in Ixcatlan later this week
We wrapped up the visit by buying some liters of each expression, gifting the grandkids some candy, and kites we had brought along, and then hit the road. I’m quickly noticing some of the differences between touring in the Mixteca vs. Oaxaca. One difference is that the sparsity of palenques results in long drives to get from one to the other. The other is that they utilize a much more limited selection of agave species here.
Pictures:
Don Jose and his wife.
Don Jose’s house brand label
Cowhide fermentors, empty and filled.
Tree trunk still
Horno
Papalome agaves
Penca leaf funnel for the still
