Agave: The Spirit of a Nation

You can make out the silhouettes of our past, in the morning light.

People here have been cultivating this plant for millennia.

Farming it connects them to the land,

to their history.

Its fibers are coarse, its leaves sharp.

It is a struggle to grow,

an unlikely source of sustenance.

Those who harvest it, the jimadores,

use the same primitive tools their ancestors did.

The ancients believed it was a gift from the gods,

able to communicate the secrets of the soil,

To express the soul of the land.

Here in the highlands of Jalisco,

it's very common that we love to do everything by ourselves.

It's not very easy for us to delegate.

It looks so easy when they are doing it,

and they are very skilled, because they have

years and years doing this kind of job,

but it is hard.

Actually Guillermo, the guy with the hat,

he has been with us doing this for 42 years.

He learned this, the art of being a jimador,

from his father, from his uncles, all of his brothers.

Like, Guillermo's sons, he was able now to pay them for college.

So now they don't wanna be jimadores because now they have a degree,

they went to college, and their kids do not want to come and do this very hard labor.

That is why the challenge is to preserve the jimadores.

The good question is where are we going to get jimadores

for the next generation,

and that I couldn't answer what's gonna happen.

Look, I mean, there was a census here, it was done in 1998,

a census of 508 residents and now it is supposed that there are 230.

they want to see something, get something, have money

for buying clothes or shoes, or for their future

That necessity has caused a lot of people to migrate, many have gone north.

As I said, my son Temo also had to leave, because there was no work.

I didn't have any work for them and they were growing.

Remember that the vowel goes first.

Yes.

ser-vi-ces...

ser-vi-ces...

I don’t know what it says,

Repeat after me,

Don’t get distracted, you were fine.

Santiago.

I’m sorry.

We say the year we started is the same as my great-grandfather was born, 1898.

We are "mezcaleros" on both my father’s and mother’s sides.

and, in both families, women used to participate by selling mezcal,

In that time, in Santa Catarina Minas, a lot of mezcal was produced,

much more, I believe, than what we are able to produce now.

So you could say that we have a little over a hundred years making mezcal.

Now a days it is industrialized in many ways.

People have been selling mezcal like it is only an alcohol

but in its essence, it's truly so much more.

Yes, that is right; that's what I told him.

They need to cut this.

I fell in love with the world of mezcal, and the agave,

because over the years I understood

everything that I have been able to do in my

life, I owe to that plant and to that drink.

It’s like if you would search in my DNA you would find an Agave molecule.

Get in there because it is very heavy.

Let’s go over here.

You better hold it there and I'll raise it up here.

There, so it doesn’t slip.

Go up!

AGAVE El Espíritu de Una Nación

Thousands of feet above sea level,

often in the harshest of conditions,

the agave plant thrives.

The plant typically needs between six and ten years to reach maturity,

and it must be harvested by hand.

More than 200 species of agave exist on this planet,

and most are native to Mexico.

Some are farmed,

but many more grow wild throughout the countryside,

and can take twenty, even thirty years to ripen.

For centuries, mezcal has been a way of life.

Farmers make the spirit for their families,

their neighbors.

Sold in local markets,

in unlabeled containers. A part of every celebration.

When a child is born, a loved one is buried, when a couple is married.

As the saying goes:

It was long believed

that the Spanish brought distillation to Mexico.

But recent archaeological evidence suggests that

primitive stills were in use long before the conquistadors invaded.

It flourished in places with an abundance of

agave, like the states of Jalisco and Oaxaca.

Under Spanish rule,

mezcal was first banned,

then heavily taxed

but thirst for the spirit persisted.

One village in Jalisco made such delicious Mezcal,

that word of it spread far and wide.

Before it was a drink, Tequila was a place.

The mezcal from Tequila grew so famous,

that it came to be known simply as:

"Tequila"

Unlike mezcal,

which can be made from many different types of agave,

tequila can be made from just one,

the blue agave.

Demand for tequila has grown quickly.

Production practices were forced to industrialize.

Stainless steel replaced brick ovens.

Old stone mills were abandoned.

The most traditional methods for making tequila,

all but disappeared.

Everybody would prefer brandies.

It's a very Spanish thinking, probably, about fifty years ago.

and tequila was perceived as something that you

would consume if you had not enough money,

to go and buy a bottle of brandy.

That was, if I may say so, that was the Spanish influence.

A lot also had to do with the Mexican movies,

with the charro drinking out of the bottle, getting drunk

and pulling the gun, and start fighting and all of that.

That was kind of the image that the tequila would have.

The more that the consumer started learning in the last thirty years,

about 100 percent agave tequila. Hey, tequila

is not only for shooting and getting drunk.

Now, you can enjoy the

taste, the flavor, the subtle nuances from one tequila to another tequila.

The more that the people started understanding that,

tequila became more and more and more popular.

The more you know about something,

the more that now you have the tools to appreciate that something.

This originally was very poor land.

Very few crops would grow here,

so we are used to work hard in order to finally get something out of the soil.

50 years ago we used to produce 8 months a year,

And now it's all year round nonstop.

The people the is already working with us is people,

Third and fourth generation of the same families that started working

With grandfather or great grandfather.

It is an extended family that has been with us In good and bad times.

Good Afternoon, Guys!

I was studying agriculture, because I thought

well My father he's the master distiller,

He's a chemical engineer.

He knows he's stuff on producing tequila.

When I came back from college with my title I said:

"Ok, I'm ready let's go to the fields"

And he told me: "I'm glad that your back, because

I'm sick and tired been sitting at an office"

"And taking decisions and dealing with paperwork and doing all of this"

"So now, you sit on my chair and do what I would do, and I'm going to the fields.”

And I said: "Wait a minute. There's something wrong here."

"I know a little bit about drinking it, but nothing about producing tequila,"

"and of course, I don't know how to run a company,"

"and you want me from overnight to take your place here?”

He said, "Well, I'll be close by, I'll be in

the fields. So if you have any questions,"

"you can always go and ask me,"

"but yeah, that's your role. Sit in my chair and do what I would do."

My brother is one of the most intelligent people in this world.

He knows about everything and about numbers, about engineering. He's so smart.

He is also, I've got to be honest with you, he's a little rough on the edges,

because he is really temperamental. He gets upset really easily

and I'm not saying this like a bad thing,

because I think you need this kind of character

in order to be the head of a company.

You can't be soft all the time, or happy all the time.

So I think every time he comes and looks at how the agave is moving,

how the ovens are loading,

I think he's always thinking in that part,

"How am I gonna grow?"

"But without losing my people and without losing the quality."

Now we are having this big shortage of agave,

and I think that's one of the most highest points of pressure,

because you know that if we don't have agave, the rest of the production is dead.

Agave shortages are not uncommon in the tequila industry.

Increased demand for one hundred-percent-agave tequila,

translates into a greater need for agave.

The rise of agave prices in recent years has been relentless.

Like all spirits, distilling tequila requires a vast amount of raw materials.

It is no coincides that we use the word spirit.

to refer to whiskey,

or brandy,

or tequila,

or mezcal.

To distill something is to reduce it to its most basic essence.

To make tequila or mezcal,

the agave must first be cooked.

For tequila it is steamed.

For mezcal, it is roasted underground.

Then cooked agave is then crushed, extracting its sweet juices,

which are then fermented.

Yeast transforms sugar into alcohol.

Next comes distillation.

Typically in copper pot stills,

but in certain villages,

mezcal continues to be made in small clay pots.

When the spirit of the agave is extracted,

all the information it stores,

transmitted over its lifetime,

from the sun, soil, and water, is preserved.