Cenizo Colonial San Miguel de Temoaya Mezcal

Cenizo Colonial Temoaya is made with maguey Cenizo (agave Duranguensis). Enrique de la Cruz produces this mezcal in San Miguel Temoaya, where they roast in an underground wood-fired earthen oven, ferment with wild yeast in wooden “coffins” recessed into the ground, mill the agave by hand using machetes, and distill in the traditional alembique viejo of Durango. 

This is a “Filipino”-style still similar to the clay pot stills of Oaxaca – except that holding the liquid is a copper base vessel recessed into the mud-brick hearth over a fire, and the upper montera is an upside down cone made of wooden staves held together by metal rings (like a conical wooden barrel open at the large bottom end and closed with a barrel end at the top), with the liquid mezcal flowing out through a hollow log into a condenser tank with a copper coil.

Cenizo Colonial Temoaya is fruity with notes of fresh earth, chili pepper, oregano, and light hints of smoke on the finish.