We’ve been quiet for a while. It has been a crazy year. Nevertheless we managed to record a couple of very enlightening conversations (at least we think that) during 2020.
The first episode will drop Friday, where it’s just Diego and Albert reflecting on the last months and what we have learned so far from this podcast. Then we will drop a new episode every 2 weeks until we run out of material š
This is a short one. And the last one for a little while. We are recapping Season 2 , which has brought us some outstanding conversations with giants of the Agave world. Thanks again to all our guests and to you for listening and giving us feedback!
For Season 3 we will try to keep up the quality and we are looking forward to it (we hope that some of the ideas we have hatched already will become a reality… )
For those of you who are in Berlin, you can meet Diego at the Craft Spirits Berlin convention March 7 & 8.
But stop! Before turning your device off, please enjoy the interview with Alex from Auroom in Munich. He is a listener of the first hour and you will experience his love for Agave in our interview. Every time Albert visits Auroom, it feels more like a Mezcaleria, as the Agave expressions are taking over. But nonetheless you will also find excellent cocktails there too. Unfortunately we did the interview back in July 2019 before his trip to Oaxaca – so we might have him as a guest in the 3rd season as well so he can share these experiences with us as well.
Albert & Alex on a hot day in July 2019
Please also check out our Map of Bars and feel free to contribute.
In this chapter we are joined by Cate, a tequila nerd and wonderful conversation partner. She gave us some insight into her experiences at the Fortaleza bartender program last year – a trip that let her experience the hard work, craftsmanship and arts of creating Agave spirits first hand. (If you want to learn more about Fortaleza, you can listen to our episode with Don Guillermo here.) She also shared some amazing spirits from her personal collection with us, one of them a “dusty bottle” of Herradura which gave Diego some serious goosebumps. Enjoy!
Albert, Fernando & Diego (and some Oaxacan spirits)
Fernando – co-owner of our Berlin’s most favorite Mezcal bar “La Tentación” – has planned a spectacular trip to his birthplace Oaxaca from September 1st to September 10th 2020. When we read about it, we wanted to create some more awareness of this tour to our listeners and asked Fernando if he can walk us through the schedule. So we could learn more about the Mecca of Mezcal and you can decide if you want to join this trip. You can contact Fernando directly ( fernando@tentacionmezcalothek.de )
This bar episode takes us to Manchester. Already in July 2019 and only equipped with a tiny microphone (so please excuse the sound quality) Albert met with Adam to discuss the love for Agave based spirits in Northern England. Crazy PedroĀ“s mixes Pizza and Agave, so it is not a classical Mezcaleria, however their range of spirits is excellent. No matter if you like your spirits in pure form or in a cocktail, Crazy Pedro’s can fix you up in three locations. We have marked all of them in our custom map for you.
Carl and Albert took a walk through Berlin to talk about our favourite topic! A couple of days before Carl made an experiment in Berlin’s La Tentancion Mezcaleria where he served the same drink three times, but each time with a different Agave spirit, showing how little details can make a big impact. Albert wanted to know more about his approach towards mixing spirits that are not predictable and about his history with Tequila and Mezcal.
You can find “The Barking Dog” and other great European bars on this custom map:
Albert, Diego, Cristian and Roberto during a busy BCB
Roberto Artusio and Cristian Bugiada are Italian Mezcal legends. Roberto is the owner of Jerry Thomas Speakeasy and Cristian Bugiada is a partner of Freni e Frizioni. Together they created La Punta Expendio de Agave in Rome, which is a Mezcaleria, only dedicated to Agave spirits and offers more than 600 expressions.
La Punta Expendio de Agave
Their passion for Agave did not go unnoticed by Mexico’s official regulatory board for Mezcal (CONSECO REGULATOR DE MEZCAL or CRM ) and it officially declared them āMezcal Ambassadorsā, an honor which at the time of our interview only five people outside of America have received.
We took the chance to speak to Roberto and Cristian during BCB. We dug deeper into their passion for everything Maguey, their other projects and the connection they feel – as Italians – to Mexico. Our interview with them also starts our long announced series of European bar recommendations. We had to do this interview in a noisy environment, please excuse the not so optimal sound quality
You can find our evolving European Map of Mezcal bars here:
During our adventures we had the joy to speak with other Agave enthusiasts around Europe, and some of them either run their own bar or know good places in Europe where you can find an excellent selection of good spirits.
We will publish these chapters in the coming weeks and here is already a preparation. We think this list/map can grow slowly into a compendium to help you find your Agave fix in Europe, but of course it doesn’t have the intention to be complete.
However, if you encounter a worthy candidate during your own adventures, please reach out to us so we can add it to the map:
We took advantage of BCB to speak to Don Guillermo Erickson Sauza, an absolute legend in the industry. Of course we talked about his brand “Fortaleza” but the conversation went deeper into family and why Guillermo’s heart is in Mexico.
Diego, Albert and Don Guillermo at the “Cantina Mexico” BCB boothThe Fortaleza products from left to right with the individual images from the farms
Our guest Sergio “Cache” Mendoza takes us to Mexico with his poetic words and his passion. In a conversation respectful to the brothers Tequila and Mezcal we also learned that there used to be five levels to describe the maturity of agave plants. Recorded at Bar Convent Berlin (please excuse the background noise).
Diego, Albert and Sergio (Cache)Cache with Don Fulano and Derrumbes bottlesCache and Esteban (his partner in Derrumbes, who was in our episode “The limitations of denominations”