Beyond Tequila: Exploring Mexico’s Other Agave Spirits

Everybody knows tequila. More people are starting to know mezcal. But lurking beyond these two famous names is a whole family of agave spirits that spent centuries hiding in plain sight.

Agave spirits have been having something of a moment of late, with people starting to take tequila more seriously beyond something you throw back in a shot glass at a party. This increased attention on the finer nuances of tequila has spilled over into mezcal, another agave-derived spirit that has gained more of a foothold in the mainstream over the past few years. 

But beyond these two, there are other lesser-known spirits that hail from the same plant, with histories and characteristics just as complex and worth paying attention to. Let’s shine a light on some of the rougher diamonds that Mexico has to offer.

Raicilla

Coming from humble beginnings as the emblematic moonshine of Jalisco, raicilla has now ascended to the agave spirit aristocracy, with the beverage now possessing its own Denomination of Origin (DO). Historically very much a drink of the working class, it was consumed by local miners and farmers in secret, away from the watchful eyes of the Spanish colonial tax collectors intent on protecting the monopoly of imported European brandies. 

It comes from a highly diverse lineup of wild and semi-cultivated agaves that include Agave maximiliana (locally called Lechuguilla), Agave inaequidens, and Agave valenzuelana found in the mountains, as well as the Agave rhodacantha and Agave angustifolia (Chico Aguiar) variants found down by the coast. Because these plants often grow in the wild on steep, rocky slopes, they develop incredibly concentrated, complex sugars, resulting in a wild, rustic beverage, the specific characteristics of which depend profoundly on the altitude it originates from.

Bacanora

Bacanora is a spirit from Sonora in northern Mexico that shares a similarly illicit past with raicilla, with the spirit actually being banned for 77 years (until 1992) by the Sonoran government in an effort to curb alcohol consumption and promote corn production. 

Distillers were literally hunted during the prohibition era, having to carry out their clandestine operations deep in remote desert canyons, working out of stills that could be dismantled at a moment’s notice whenever the authorities came sniffing around.

The inhospitable Sonoran climate, defined by scorching summer heat and freezing winter nights, has a large part to play in the eventual flavour of Bacanora. Made exclusively from either wild or sustainably cultivated Agave angustifolia, these plants can take anywhere from seven to 12 years to mature, doing so under the punishing Sonoran sun, which forces the plant to store rich, dense, complex carbohydrates just to survive. 

The end result is a spirit that tends to be lean and dry, with an intensely savoury undertone as opposed to any notions of sweetness or fruitiness. The traditional cooking process, involving underground pits lined with volcanic rock and fuelled by local mesquite and oak, contributes to the flavour as well, imparting a clean, sharp campfire smoke that comes across tighter and more focused when compared to something like a traditional Oaxacan mezcal.

Pulque & Destilado de Pulque

Pulque isn’t really a spirit, though a few craft producers have taken to distilling it in recent times. A viscous, milky, low-alcohol fermented sap (aguamiel) that dates back to the Aztecs, it was considered a sacred drink back then, reserved for priests and royalty. It’s a drink that ferments rapidly and spoils within a matter of days, making it impractical for export in its unadulterated form.

Pulque can be found in the high-altitude plains of Central Mexico, predominantly in the states of Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, and the Estado de México, where the cool, semi-arid climate provides the perfect conditions for the giant agave from which it comes to thrive. When I say giant, I mean giant, with these plants often growing for 12 to 15 years and reaching over 10 feet wide before they’re ready to be harvested. 

Where standard spirits are distilled from the baked heart (piña) of the agave, which caramelises the sugars, distilled pulque is a different beast altogether. For distilled pulque, the live plant’s heart is hollowed out instead, with the liquid sap scraped and collected daily over a period of several months before being left to ferment raw. 

When run through a copper still, this live, milky ferment transforms into a distinctly funky and vegetative spirit. Bypassing the typically smoky or caramelised notes of the other distillates, it offers a bright, sour-yeast sort of profile with hints of tropical fruits, green apple, and a lactic tang underpinning the whole situation.

For now, most of these bottles remain local curiosities, known chiefly to enthusiasts and the communities that have been making them for generations. But then again, people once said much the same thing about mezcal. The drinks world has a habit of falling in love with whatever it’s only just discovered, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if one day Bacanora or raicilla became the bottle every cocktail bar suddenly couldn’t stop talking about.

Opening image: Jose de los Santos Calderón | Pexels