It takes seven or eight years for an espadín agave plant to mature to the purpose at which Rogelio Juan Hernández, maestro mezcalero and co-founder of Agua Mágica, can use it to make mezcal. For 4 generations, his household has made mezcal within the area of San Juan del Río in Oaxaca, Mexico. “It’s an ancestral expertise,” Hernández says.
The method is laborious and time-intensive. As soon as the agave vegetation have matured, the guts of the plant, generally known as the piña, is harvested after which roasted over firewood; a protecting of river rocks and banana tree husks helps entice within the warmth. After 24 hours of cooking, the agave turns candy and honey-like. As soon as it’s cooled, a mule rolling round a tahona, a big stone wheel, crushes the agave in order that the fibers and the sugars can separate. These juices ferment after which the distillation course of begins. It’s the second distillation that creates Agua Mágica’s mezcal.
Regardless of having made mezcal since he was a teen, Hernández, who at all times needed his personal distillery, needed to depart Mexico for the US for 18 years as a result of alternatives had been scarce. Agua Mágica, which launched in 2021 with co-founder and CEO Rafael Shin, desires to alter how mezcal is valued, paying mezcaleros like Hernández increased costs for the upper high quality of their product, versus the present system of pricing no matter high quality.
Certainly one of Hernández’s targets, he says, is to present younger individuals in the neighborhood alternatives so that they don’t really feel the necessity to to migrate as a lot. His son, Julio Juan, now joins him in making mezcal.
Watch the newest episode of Distributors to be taught extra about how Agua Mágica is preserving custom in mezcal-making.
