Here we learned a lot about their conservation efforts to educate, promote, and preserve agave in Oaxaca. There are over 270 varietes of agave of which 60 or 70 are available in Oaxaca. Tequila uses a mono-culture of blue agave, but mezcal can use many different varieties of agave, the most common one being espadin because it grows quickly, quickly being a relative term because it can take a minimum of 7 years for agave to grow and ideally much longer. We learned about the mezcal production process which is also quite time consuming. The end result is what we were able to taste. We’ve no doubt gained an incredible appreciation for mezcal and we will definitely be more actively seeking it out back home.
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