After visiting a mezcal distillery, it immediately becomes clear that ‘smokey’ is not the only way to describe this increasingly popular liquor made from both wild and cultivated agave plants. The flavor of mezcal is complex, and there are endless varieties — some taste like corn chips, coffee or tutti-fruity. Others like chicken or citrus. The possibilities are endless.

My new friend Andrea Hagan is the manager at Mezcaloteca, a Mezcal label and tasting room in Oaxaca City, with a new non-profit arm, supporting independent mezcal producers with small artisinal production. It was she who brought me to Don Felix, a mezcal producer in the Ocotlan valley 1 hour outside of Oaxaca City. To make his signature distillations, Don Felix combines cultivated agave, know as espadin,with wild agave that can take up to 20 years to mature. These core of the plants are cooked into a mash for 5 days, left to ferment in a gigantic tub in the blazing sun were it starts to bubble. This brown sludge is then distilled in a clay pot, a process that is repeated up to three times. The process is smoky and messy, and sometimes involves added ingredients for complexity and flavor during the 3rd distillation cycle. This can be fruit, the resulting sticky sweet (alcoholic) mess seen in the bowl above, is eaten when the procedure is finished. It is as delicious as you might imagine, saturated and full of flavor. On the other end of the spectrum, on the occasion of family weddings, a Pechuga is commonly made, whereby a chicken breast is hung inside the distillation chamber (also seen above, hanging from the thatched roof), allowing some of the fat to drip into the alcohol, resulting in a more unctuous flavor.

Unlike the industrially made mezcal that distills in large metal tanks with added sugars, the good stuff is distilled through clay or glass with wild yeast.The batch that Don Felix’s had in the works when we arrived had been distilling for 36 hours. This means that he had been awake for that long or longer, watching the drip and tending to the fire that keeps the operation going. Don Felix makes some of the best mezcal in the area, but when we he delivered the final product to us in a 3 liter Fanta bottle.