Although there are many maestros mezcaleros creating mezcal in other Mexican states, Oaxaca is the heartland of this smoky spirit. With its rich ancestral past and multi-cultural traditions, Oaxaca is a jewel surrounded by colorful landscapes, colonial architecture, flavors of its unique gastronomy, culture, and hand-made crafts. This is where our exquisite mezcal originates. Ignacio Carballido and Guillermo Olguín Mitchell, founders of Los Amantes Mezcal were inspired by this rich landscape and also by the local folklore--the love story of the Aztec Goddess Mayahuel who disobeyed her grandmother and fell in love with Quetzalcoatl. After Mayahuel’s passing in the arms of her sweetheart, her remains were buried and the agave was watered with Quetzalcoatl’s tears of sorrow, giving life to the first agave plant.
The raw materials are also of the utmost importance. They source their agave from mature plants and harvesting is a labor-intensive procedure in which the thick spiky leaves needed to be removed with a machete to get to the heart of the piña. In order to escape the sweltering heat during the day, the cutting process is typically started in the early hours of the morning. For Los Amantes, a fire is started in a pit with volcanic rocks making this make-shift oven ready for the piñas to be placed over them in layers initiating the cooking process. Once in place, the piñas are draped in burlap and earth and set to bake for a minimum of 72 hours giving our mezcal its smoky, earthy flavors. The cooked agave is chopped and manually placed in a round area and crushed in an old-fashioned style using a tahona, which is a heavy stone mill pulled by a horse. This pulp is used for the next step of fermentation. Ignacio and Guilleromo want to avoid industrial processes, so their fermentations are all natural, spontaneous with ambient yeasts in order to maintain the artisanal characteristics of the final spirits.
Ignacio and Guilleromo partner with an historic distillery, one of the oldest in Mexico to painstakingly craft their mezcales. Using copper distillation tanks, also known as alambiques, the liquid is double, or triple distilled depending on the expression being created. Mezcal joven is triple distilled while the reposado and añejo are distilled twice.
Los Amantes Reposado and Añejo are aged in American and French oak barrels for 6 months and 2 years respectively.
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