raicilla romance

7/25/2019 Raicilla Romance

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What it actually is, Heugel elab-orates, arranging bottles and tastingglasses on the small metal table weresharing in the front of Te Pastry War,is just a mezcal made on the west coastof Jalisco. Tats all it is.

Given the relative newness of Amer-icas infatuation with agave spiritsas more than body-shot booze or

worm-bearing novelty, its not really thatsurprising that theres a bit of confusionsurrounding raicilla. With other catego-ries of spirits, drinkers have the benetof the education that naturally followstime and experience, allowing broad cat-egories to develop. Take a category likeScotch whisky. A basic level of educa-tion in the category reveals that there area handful of different Scotch-producingregions, from Highland to Islay, butthose largely geographical designatorsdont mean that Scotch whisky from Is-

lay is an inherently different spirit thanScotch whisky from Speyside.Te same should hold true for raicilla

and mezcal, says Heugel.Where things get interesting is not

in drawing hard lines between what areessentially different expressions of thesame spirit, but in understanding whythere are lines in the rst place, andwhat makes a certain bottle taste the

way it does. For raicilla, those lines tracearound a combination of local cultureand global marketing, intertwiningaround a distilling tradition, the veryexistence of which is under constantthreat.

Ive been to [several raicilla distill-eries], says Heugel, showing me Insta-gram photos of himself, bandanad and

beaming standing beside a rudimentaryclay still. Tey interchangeably calltheir products mezcal and raicilla. As amatter of fact, if you ask them what thedifference is between mezcal and raicillaand try to force them to dene theirproducts with this false dichotomy, theyget frustrated.

Of course, those distinctions, arti-cial though they may be, can also beuseful tools for producers and exporters.Unlike tequila or mezcal, or even theirfar less-well-known agave cousins sotol

and bacanora, raicilla lacks any officialrecognition.Tese AOs, or Appellationsof Origin, help producers to distinguishtheir product in the marketplace, allow-ing for branding and differentiation. Forraicilla, this branding is unlikely, giventequilas cultural and scal dominance inJalisco.Te chances of a raicilla AO arepretty slim.

Still, the name itself, and the air of

differentiation that surround it, can beuseful marketing ploys in and of them-selves. In a way, raicilla is mirroring thebranding history of mezcal more broad-ly, rst set up as the outlaw cousin oftequila. Now, that torch has been passedon to raicilla, given a mist personacontrasted against the nobility of tequilaand, increasingly, mezcal.

While there may be no hard lines todraw between raicilla and mezcal, theformer is a glimpse into the history ofthe latter, often using techniques andvarietals not often seen in neighbor-ing states. Raicilla and the mezcals ofJalisco are these specters from the pastthat no one likes to talk about becausetequila is so dominant in Jalisco, saysHeugel, pouring us each a taste ofRaicilla Sur de Jalisco, the red labelbottling from La Venenosa, currentlythe only brand available in Texas. Tese

people are so rare, Heugel continues,launching into the backstory of thefamily behind the bottle.

Tis the last clay mezcal producerin this region of Jalisco, in agave eldsthat are owned by plants from Sauza, inthe middle of sugarcane. You have thesemassive sugarcane elds, a bunch ofblue agave owned by Sauza, and he hastwo tiny elds with ancestral plants that

RAICILLA IS JUST

MEZCAL MADE in the

coastal and western

Sierra of Jalisco.

jalisco, MEXICO


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his family has passed down for genera-tions, and he still makes his mezcal outof clay. Hes the rundown bungalowin Montrose surrounded by condos oneither side.

Raicilla Sur de Jalisco brings butter-scotch and sweet manure on the nose. It

is deeply rich and earthy. Minerals andold couches and dust, with a fairly drynish and no tartness. For all its earthyfunk, it is incredibly rened. In short,its not the caricature some are drawingof raicilla.

Heugel launches into an explanationof production, explaining where thosearomas, those avors come from. Porousclay pots embedded in damp soil rampup the earthy minerality of this mezcal,while the wet region impacts the charac-ter of the agaves themselves.

Cenizo as a varietal is one of thefunkiest craziest varietals there is, ex-plains Heugel, who then goes on to saythat, to him, this mezcal just tastes ofwhere its from. Im not always the bestguide for mezcal, especially if Ive beenthere, because Im just like No, its theplace, it just makes sense, you know?

Heugel tries again to explain that

sense of place as he pours samples ofRaicilla Costa de Jalisco, the green label.Te smoke on this one is incidental.Tis family migrated from Guerrero towestern Jalisco, and when they migratedthey brought Guerrero roasting tech-niques with them. Tey have like this

concrete-y stone above-air oven.Teyactually roast the agaves similar to howsomeone might make tequila as a family.Tey dont bury it in the ground. Trueto his words, the smoke is restrained,coming in as a back-end to an herba-ceous body.Te spirit opens mildlysweet and vegetal, bleeding into a oralmid-palate and an earthy, smoky nish.Still, theres no hint of that wild, sourspirit that dominates many discussionsof raicilla.

Heugel reaches next for Raicilla Sierra

del Tigre, and Im taken a bit aback. Isthis one a little sour? Te sourness inraicilla that people typically talk about,it comes from a humid environment.Its not the style of mezcal, its just theenvironment talking in the mezcal,explains Heugel. It is a bit sour. Funky,even. Blue cheese and old walnuts onthe nose give way to fruit on the palate.

A hint of chocolate and whispers offresh cherry. Still, that funk never fadesentirely. Its super complex weird, butweirdly delicious.

Heugel goes on to explain that thesame elements responsible for sour stylesof beer are at play in those examples

of raicilla that doexhibit those sourcharacteristcs so often claimed for theentire region. Te humid environ-ment, coupled with the wood columns(hollowed-out tree limbs, really), createa hospitable situation for bacteria that,while not harmful, have a signicantimpact on the character of the nishedspirit.Tats one of the things thats soaggravating for Heugel when it comes toraicilla.

Rather than understanding the waythese spirits are made and the environ-

ments in which these distilleries arelocated, the branding of raicilla seeksto reduce a broad and varied array ofspirits being made by proudly tradi-tional artisans to a handful of phrasesand assumptions. To Heugel, this isdisrespectful to both the spirits and thepeople producing them.

For our next sample, and for a perfect

La Venenosa is

currentlthe onl

raicilla brand

available in Texas


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Seve it neat

alongside pieces o

tropical fruit

topped with a das

of Tajin and a

squeeze of lime.

how do you

drink raicilla?


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illustration of how an understanding ofplace and process is critical to under-standing what raicilla is, Heugel invitesme into his office, offthe oor of thebar. He is pouring from his privatecollection, unavailable to the publicanywhere in Texas.

Tis is a raicilla from Dimitrio, hesays cuing up another Instagram photo.Dimitrio is 80-something years old.Hiz mezcal is f***ing crazy. Its f***ingcrazy where he makes it, is a more accu-rate way to say it. Heugel isnt kidding.Te picture he shows me looks like anartifact from a time long gone. Denseforest encroaching on all sides, a simple,tin-roofed structure barely keeping thewild at bay, all roof and no walls. Smokedrifts gently from the front. As hepours, hes reminiscing. Tis place, this

bottle, is clearly important to him.Were down there and everyonesfreaking out about how hot it is andhow many mosquitos there are there.While were standing there, this guycomes riding by on a horse, and hesdragging along this eight-foot rattle-snake on a rope, because theyre goingto eat it. I dont know who was morefreaked out, all the people who were likeWhat the hell is up with the guy withthe snake? or the guy with the snakewho was like What the hell are all thesewhite people doing here?

Tis one, a bottling from Mezonte,is wilder and woolier in every way. Itsantiseptic and tart, even after a longrest in its bottle. Raw, but not harsh. Ittastes wild, dank.

Teres oods there every couple ofyears, and everything washes away, saysHeugel, but they just go get all theparts and put the distillery back togeth-er. But it is just so humid and so sweatyand blech. Tats why its sour. Teresbacteria there, and its a humid envi-ronment. When were trying to describe

raicilla, theyre not doing somethingdifferent, theyre just making mezcal in ahumid environment.Te nal pour, another Mezonte bot-

tling, is likely the last of its kind. Tisguy doesnt make mezcal anymore,Heugel notes. Whats really cool aboutthis is that its Cenizo from 21-year-oldplants.

Tis is intense stuff. Deeply earthy,mossy almost. A mlange of crazy herbsthat dont exist in any form I know, witha mint nish and just a hint of Pine Sol.Its like the elephant pen at the zoo, butnice, offers Justin Burrow of Bad NewsBar, whos stopped by for a visit just in

time for this special tasting. Hes notwrong, as odd as that may sound.

[Te distiller is] getting older andrealizing hes not going to be makingmezcal anymore, so its time to takedown the cenizos, to try to make a reallybadass mezcal. Tis ones not sour. Alot of the mezcals from that regionaresour; we just dont have a lot of themhere. A couple of them are, but nearlyas sour as some of them get, we justcant get those. Tis ones just a reallybadass mezcal that would hold its own

anywhere. A hundred liters total in theworld that exist. Its his swan song.While you wont get to hear that

particular song, you can nd all of theLa Venenosa bottles around town, ifyou like. Te Pastry War carries them,as does Bad News, just down the street.If youre lucky, you might nd a bottleat Specs. Tey list them in inventory,though Ive yet to nd a bottle in stock.If you do, you might be wondering howto serve your raicilla.

Heugel doesnt recommend casuallytossing a few ounces of raicilla into your

margarita. Rather, he suggests drink-ing them as the locals do, neat. If youwanted to put something on the side,they do a lot of diced tropical fruit withTajin [seasoning powder] and lime juice.So they serve it alongside papayas andpineapples and mangos, and fruits likethat that grow in that region, and theydust Tajin and other Mexican spices onthem and squeeze lime on top, and theydrink raicilla with it. Tey dont makecocktails with these things. We donteither.

If you want to get the most out ofyour raicilla, youll follow suit. Justdont tell anyone youre drinking raicilla.Tats the rst rule.

Nicholas L. Hall also wrote SmokeSignals, our barbecue story on page 40.

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