An American transplant, French launched Scorpion Mezcal in Oaxaca 25 years ago. A Deliciously Sustainable Raw Materialĭouglas French’s journey to Mexican whiskey was also through mezcal. Photo courtesy of Abasolo Ancestra Corn Whiskey. Iván Saldaña at the Abasolo distillery in Jilotepic de Molina Enriquez, Mexico. It’s even replacing agave spirits, in corn margaritas, for example,” he adds. “The vibrant corn flavor of cacahuazintle really shines in Abasolo, because there is minimal oak aging, so it’s ideal mixed with coffee and in tiki drinks. “Bartenders love Abasolo because it has that sense of nostalgia from drinking atole or eating pinole ,” says Abasolo’s brand manager, Cesar Sandoval, as well as for the way it works in cocktails. He also created Nixta Licor, based on an ancestral corn liqueur from Jilotepec. After years of experimenting, Saldaña launched Abasolo Whisky in the spring of 2020. The resulting whiskey is made with some malted and some nixtamalized corn. He returned with the idea of blending the traditional Mexican process of nixtamalization with that malting process.
While Saldaña was on a trip to Peru, he encountered the local malted corn beverage called jora, which is essentially a malted corn beer. Hedescribes cacahuazintle as “floury, with lots of air in the grain, not so compact, less fat inside, lots of protein, and, of course, a lot of starch.” Corn was the obvious next ingredient in line.Īs Saldaña recalls, “I explored everything from popcorn to multicolored corn from all over Mexico” before “falling in love with” cacahuazintle, a variety of corn grown in the mountains east of Mexico City (famously featured as the large kernels in pozole, the national stew). “After that experience, I became obsessed with doing more with the raw materials that are unique and important to Mexico,” Saldaña says. He went on to experiment with other ingredients and created the chile liqueur Ancho Reyes, then sold both brands to Campari in 2019. Iván Saldaña trained as a chemist and worked in the tequila industry before he launched Montelobos Mezcal in 2011. Leveraging Mezcal Expertise and Popularityīy bringing money, experience, and attention to Mexico’s ancient distilling traditions and ingredients, the past decade’s mezcal craze paved the way for this moment. What if I start buying corn from local farmers and paying fair prices?’” Photo courtesy of Sierra Norte.
Mexican whiskey brands how to#
He says, “I thought, ‘I’m a distiller, I know how to do this. market in 2021.īarbieri developed the idea for Maiz Nation after living in a tiny Mexican village of corn farmers for 12 years. “This national treasure of national corn, created by the indigenous scientists of Mexico, was in danger of extinction,” says Jonathan Barbieri, founder of Pierde Almas mezcal and Maiz Nation, a new small-batch corn whiskey that’s due to hit the U.S. In recent decades, corn - Mexico’s great agricultural gift to the world - has been facing an existential threat, due largely to the flood of industrial corn into Mexico post-NAFTA, as well as the greater commodification of agriculture globally, which has placed heirloom plants in peril. Indigenous peoples in and around Oaxaca not only hybridized corn varieties that span the color and size spectrum, but they also figured out how to unlock the nutritional bomb within each grain through nixtamalization, the technique of cooking dried corn in the chemicals present in ash. Mexican civilization and culture were built on corn. And it still is,” says Douglas French, distiller of Sierra Norte Whiskey. “Corn has been the main diet for the majority of Mexicans for as long as 14,000 years. How Whiskey Could Save Mexico’s Indigenous Grain In the birthplace of maize, the birth of this new category feels like destiny. Although Mexican spirits are synonymous with mezcal and its Jaliscan offshoot, tequila, it’s corn - not agave - that is Mexico’s ancestral grain, and it remains central to the country’s cultural identity.ĭriven by longtime agave distillers with rich experience crafting artisanal mezcal, the young Mexican whiskey movement is focused on reviving near-extinct heritage corn varieties and the results are as varied as the heirloom corn varieties that grow across the country. Today, some of the most intriguing spirits coming out of Mexico are made from corn.
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