Roast

The agaves are cooked 3-5 days underground in a syncretical brick lined oven which is fired by pine and oak. However, here they take a more practical approach to this process: Instead of building a big bonfire, letting it burn down before adding the volcanic rock they have simplified the process and have devised a system that allows for them to first load the firewood and build the volcanic rock over the top while inserting a metal tube in which they drop lit “ocote de pino” (resinous rich part of the pine tree) in to the middle of the mound to ignite the green oak which also has the ocote underneath it. (Ocote comes from the Nahuatl word ocotl for torch)

This innovative approach not only shortens the time they must wait before loading the agave in the pit (by 4 hours) but more importantly it significantly reduces the amount of smoke that they inhale with each roast.

Crush

The process here is again done a little differently with the Perez...the agaves are milled within 24 hours of being pulled from the oven, which means there is no resting time/ dry fermentation before milling. They have evolved from milling by hand in canoas (a wooden troughs) to a mechanical mill which is unlike anything we have ever seen in any part of Mexico. Here Don Miguel modified an old corn stalk grinder and attached it to an old 1979 manual transmission 4.0 cylinder Datsun engine. Yep! This bad boy not only has a throttle but also has a clutch and can grind in reverse and drive.

Fermentation

The first 9 batches of the different bottlings we will be importing were fermented in underground rectangular clay pits which are lined with oak planks. The fermentation times will vary depending on the type of agave and the time of year. On average they are:

“Chino” (A. cupreata) - 6-10 days
“Alto” (A. inaequidens) - 6-12 days
“Mexicano” (A. rhodacantha) - 8-15 days

Distillation

Twice distilled in Destiladoras Tarasco’s, a type of Filipino still who’s still head is made up of oak planks (kind of like a barrel which is flared out at the bottom).

After it is determined that the ferment is ready to be distilled, buckets of fermented fiber and juice are poured into a 220-liter copper pot before winching down the approximately 160 pound still head on top of it. The still head is sealed using the crust of the fermentation and fiber. Inside the still head, as with other Filipino stills, is a wooden paddle used to collect the mezcal, that has condensed on the stainless-steel bowl on top of the still and finally funnels out in food grade hoses to food grade collection tanks.

Glass Aging/ Resting

The first imports of Palomas Mensajeras will be aged in glass demijohns for the following periods of time...

“Chino” (A. cupreata) - 4 years, 3 months
“Alto” (A. inaequidens) – 4 years, 2 months
“Mexicano” (A. rhodacantha) – 4 years, 2 months
“Ensamble of Chino + Alto + Mexicano” - 4 years, 3 months

A. cupreata (Chino)

Average 7-8 years maturation
- can only be grown from seed
- The Perez have two different subspecies of A. cupreata

-35% of them are endemic to Michoacan (more green)

-65% of them are from a subspecies introduced in 2005 from Tixla, Guerrero (more yellow) which are higher yielding sweeter and much bigger... They've since hybridized over time. As the Perez joke they are “Michoacanizados”

The average weight of a piña 80 kilos but can grow up to 120 kilos 15 kilos to produce 1 liter of mezcal

A. inaequidens (Alto)

Average 9-10 years maturation
- can only be grown from seed

The average weight of a piña 150 kilos 25 kilos to produce 1 liter of mezcal

Interesting fact: A. inaequidens has a lot of saponins which results in it being challenging in distillation in that it can get very foamy due to the soap like properties which can generate wasted product in production.

A. rhodacantha (Mexicano)

Palomas are the only producers in Michoacan to have A. rhodacantha to their and our knowledge. The reason for this is that in 2004 when visiting Oaxaca a legendary Maestro Mezcalero gifted Don Miguel a handful of seeds to take back to Michoacan where he has been cultivating them from seed and hijulo ever since.

Average 12 years maturity
Average weight 50 kilos (this is attributed to different soil and growing conditions) 20 kilos to produce 1 liter of mezcal

“Ensamble de Tres” (A. rhodacantha, A. cupreata, A. inaequidens)

A harmonious trio of mature agaves which are hand harvested and wild fermented separately, but then distilled together in the first distillation in near equal parts.