I’m willing to bet you can’t name the 10 best-selling champagne brands in the world—I know I can’t. But you’d probably guess that they would all be French brands, and you’d be correct. Veuve Clicquot, Dom Perignon, Laurent-Perrier, and the other top brands are all cultivated and fermented from red and white grape varieties in France’s Champagne region. In fact, in order to be legally labeled as Champagne, the wine has to not only be completely made in this particular region but also use the strict traditional champagne production method. Champagne is 100% French, from cultivation to bottling, and one of the most culturally identifiable prides of the French people.
All international cultures tend to take their alcohol production quite seriously. Everyone identifies saké with Japan, an ancient drink made from fermented rice. Spain has been making sangria for millennia, with each region having its own distinct variety. Vodka is synonymous with Russia, and so important to Russia’s economy that Putin seized control of that industry before all others, even oil and natural gas. Although the U.S. is a much younger nation, Congress formally recognized bourbon as a “distinctive” U.S. product and set strict federal standards required for its development.
In Mexico, most people associate their national drink as tequila, yet there is another spirit currently taking the liquor industry by storm—one that was first created by the Aztecs back in 200 AD. The difficult technique to create has been passed down through several families for hundreds of years. Mezcal is a distilled liquor created from several varieties of the agave plant, and is currently the fastest growing spirit in America, growing over 50% in 2021. There are now more sales of mezcal in the U.S. than in Mexico.
Yet the Mexican distillers, farmers, and laborers are not seeing the profits from the current mezcal boom. There is an expensive certification process to label mezcal, and in a cruel twist, generational family distillers can’t even label their products as mezcal. Even worse, although the Mexican government requires mezcal to be cultivated and fermented in certain regions of Mexico, it allows foreign brands outside of Mexico to buy and resell the mezcal under their own label. This means distillers are being squeezed from both ends to sell bottles of mezcal for pennies on the dollar while the giant, established liquor companies mark them up 1000%. As a sad result, none of the top-selling brands are Mexican-owned companies.
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For centuries, mezcal was considered a “poor man’s drink” shunned by the upper classes. Yet you’d never know that today given how expensive mezcal is and how many celebrities now have their own brands.
The fact is that it’s a long and arduous process to make, and every single part of the process is difficult. It starts with the agave plants, which have to be harvested in the steep mountainous areas of Mexico by hand.
Depending on the variety of agave, they must be aged from seven to 30 years. These plants can only be harvested once, stifling more widespread commercial applications.
The inner core of the plant, or “piña,” is stripped of leaves and cooked to release its sweet nectar. Mezcal distillers, called mezcaleros, build an earthen oven by hand from dirt for every single harvest.
They stack the piñas, covering them with moss and dirt, and then set them ablaze underground for five days. This process gives the cooked piñas an earthy and smoky tone.
They then crush the smoked plant with a one-ton stone, usually pulled by a horse or mule, in order to squish out the sweet juices. Afterward, the crushed agave fibers and juices are loaded into large wooden tubs and fermented until it is ready to be distilled. It’s a grueling process, but worth it.
Mezcal's name translates to “oven-cooked agave,” reflective of the process used to craft the beverage. The operation ends with a clear spirit that has a very smoky, savory flavor. To see how labor-intensive it is, take a look:
Families in Mexico have made mezcal for generations, and finally, it’s getting its due. Its popularity has gone through the roof in just the past few years, mostly because of its increased incorporation into a variety of cocktails, which is typically how spirits gain a following.
This was likely the result of the alcohol boom due to COVID-19 as people stuck at home started experimenting and getting ambitious with mixing drinks, and then sharing their creations online. Trendy new spirits featuring the smoky flavor of mezcal have really taken off, such as the mezcal margarita (or smoky margarita) or the mezcal mule. Mezcal sales during the first year of the pandemic grew an incredible 600%.
The Mexican government set up an agency called COMERCAM to standardize and regulate the mezcal industry. The requirement for calling a drink mezcal was to create a “Denominacion of Origen” label, which it applied to only nine states in México. (Sinaloa was recently added as the 10th state in December 2021.)
There is also a requirement for lab testing so that the elixir shows a certain alcohol and methanol content. Although this sounded like a great idea to everyone at the time, especially the mezcaleros, there were problems.
First of all, when demand exploded for mezcal for this new decade, the government agency was not prepared to handle the volume of applications. In fact, they were completely overwhelmed. The Mexican General Directorate of Standards approved three private entities to assist in the backlog of the certification process, but officials at COMERCAM were not pleased. They sued to be the sole agency to certify mezcal, and won.
However, they didn’t add new agents and the backlog to certify mezcal took anywhere from months to a year. The agency was also forced to close for an extended period of time when COVID-19 was running rampant through Mexico.
What made matters even worse was that COMERCAM has been plagued by scandal. There were accusations of conflicts of interest, particularly regarding one of the labs it used to certify mezcal. Then they were also accused of prioritizing large, wealthy distilleries over small, poorer ones. In July of 2020, while the legal dispute regarding additional certifiers was still pending, COMERCAM was fined for these deceptive practices.
Yet another big problem for the mezcaleros is that traditional methods of distilling, which rely on clay ovens and horse-drawn stones, do not guarantee consistency. Large, rich distillers use finely tuned steel equipment to ensure the percentage of alcohol and methanol meets the exact specifications.
Although this promotes consistency, the modern methods lose a lot of the hand-crafted aspect. Most mezcaleros come from generations of their family making mezcal in the traditional way, and most only use one or two stills. In fact, most can’t make more than 26 gallons of mezcal at a time.
Francisco Javier Perez Cruz, founder of a cooperative of small mezcal producers in Oaxaca, is not happy about the mechanized processes used by the big companies, he tells Wine Enthusiast. “For us, it’s part of the culture, part of the people, the history of Mexico. It’s an artisanal product.”
This brings me to the other problem: cost. Certification for mezcal in Mexico is very expensive, and most family distilleries are extremely poor. They cannot afford the thousands of dollars to pay for certification, nor all of the extra costs, such as the lab fees to get their mezcal tested. Unfortunately, there are no government programs set up to help the small artisan mezcal distilleries.
Perhaps worst of all, however, is what COMERCAM does allow. Even though they don’t certify foreign brands, they do allow foreign companies to buy unlimited amounts of distilled agave from the local Mexican distilleries. The foreign brands then repackage the mezcal as their own, give it a Spanish name, and resell it for an outrageous amount.
Many small distillers are forced to sell their product at rock-bottom prices in order to survive. Most mezcaleros are forced to sell their product in small containers, like plastic water bottles, to a middle man for just $10-$15 each. That same exact mezcal will then go into a fancy glass bottle that will resell for up to $100 a bottle.
With demand for mezcal so high, this is the chance for the Mexican government to help lift all of these families out of poverty and bring high-paying jobs to these regions. Yet that isn’t happening. Using France again as a model, there are more than 100 Champagne houses and 19,000 smaller vignerons (vine-growing producers) in the Champagne province. The houses imposed strict standards to increase sales volume, and their industry—which involves the entire process from beginning to end within a limited region—is still enjoying their created wealth.
In contrast, many small Mexican distillers can’t even label their own homegrown product mezcal. Graciela Ángeles Carreño, co-owner of Real Minero, has family roots distilling mezcal going back to the 19th century. She is currently one of the most prominent mezcal producers in Oaxaca, Mexico. However, her brand made headlines in Mexico last year because she announced she would no longer label her liquor as mezcal. It is now simply labeled “distilled agave” because the certification process was too expensive and cumbersome.
Although sad, her company is still in better shape than most. At least she has her own brand that she sells. Most distillers can’t afford their own brand, so they are forced to sell their mezcal to the large foreign brands for pennies on the dollar.
There’s a lot of money to be made doing it this way, and celebrities have gotten in on the action. George Clooney’s tequila company, Casamigos, put out a mezcal brand with George Clooney’s signature that sells for over $70 a bottle. Clooney sold his company to Diageo, a British beverage company, for $1 billion dollars. His mezcal brand is one of the top-selling mezcals, but it's not a Mexican company.
Neither is Dos Hombres, the American-owned mezcal company founded by the stars of Breaking Bad, Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston. Sammy Hagar and Guy Fieri created a mezcal/tequila hybrid called Santo, another top-selling brand, and it's owned by a non-Mexican company called Great American Craft Spirits. In fact, none of the top brands are Mexican-owned distilleries. Most are American, and some are British and French.
Bricia Lopez, a Oaxaca native who sells mezcal in her California restaurant, is not happy about this. She says celebrities and investors often talk about “discovering” the spirit. “You cannot buy tradition, and that’s what people who are getting into the mezcal business today are trying to do,” she told The New York Times. “They’re trying to position themselves next to someone who looks like an Indigenous person, take a picture and be like, ‘I’m authentic, too.’” (Kendall Jenner, who created yet another brand, took it a step further and basically pretended to be Mexican in a recent ad for her product.)
Sadly, the U.S. has a long tradition of white-washing its own distilled history, and this story shows we haven’t come as far as we should. While it’s great that these companies are giving the public more choices for mezcal, it’s equally important to make sure these newer U.S companies aren’t taking away profits from companies based in Mexico, where the agave is originally sourced.
The Mexican government can do a lot by only allowing mezcal to be sold from Mexico. Paying for certification is fine, but there should be programs to help smaller distilleries, which would go a long way toward creating jobs in these regions and allowing a very profitable industry to trickle down to the communities, farmers, and workers who make the drink in Mexico. Outsourcing has made foreign companies wealthy at Mexico’s expense.
Yet there is much we as consumers can do. The United States is, by far, the largest importer of mezcal and tequila, so we have a lot of influence as to what is happening in these industries. Our purchasing choices and priorities have power, and we have a responsibility to push for an industry that is better sustainable and equitable.
I encourage everyone reading, who is able, to try mezcal. There are plenty of family-owned ancestral operations you can support. The next time you order mezcal at a bar or restaurant, take a second and ask which ones are 100% Mexican-owned. If they don’t know, might I suggest one from a list that I compiled?
If the establishment doesn’t have any of the following, ask that they consider carrying at least one. All of the ones listed below are family-owned Mexican mezcal companies. I’ve also marked the brands owned by women, since women have always played a big role in tequila and mezcal production but haven’t always been given their due:
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Yola*
*Women-owned
Enjoy your drink. Just remember to replace "cheers" with the Spanish term “¡salud!” And if you happen to find yourself in Mexico, you’ll need to learn this toast:
SemDem May 16, 2023 at 04:40PM From Daily Kos¡Arriba, abajo, al centro, y pa' dentro!
Arriba (“up”) [move your glass up]
Abajo (“down”) [move your glass down]
Al centro (“to the center”) [move your glass in front of you – health for all]
Y pa’dentro (inside) [drink]
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