Don Amado - Tobala & Bicuixe (750ml)
Don Amado Description
On the nose, there are aromas of summer stonefruit, soft tea rose, and toasted red chiles peppers. The exotic tastes of Earl Grey tea, dried orange peel, candied mango, cinnamon, and faint woodiness lead to a smooth, jammy finish with a lingering hint of black licorice.
Master Distiller: Germaín Arellanes Arellanes
Made 100% from a blend of Tobalá and Bicuishe maguey grown at 4,800' in the town of San Pablo Apostol, Oaxaca
Halved & quartered (cogollo removed) maguey earthen roasted for four days using mix of guamúchil and mesquite wood
Cooked maguey macerated with proprietary blade spindle destrozadora shredder
Fermented together with bagaso in 1,400L pine wood vats using airborne yeast strains
Double distilled in ceramic pot stills to approx. 53% ABV and reduced with triple distilled demineralized water, no tails
No aging, bottled at 46% ABV
Nose
Rich aromas of roast agave, oceanic salt spray, with notes of lactic fermentation.
Taste
This ensemble is like the bass section of the orchestra. It opens with a rumbling timpani then bursts of mineral highlights. In the background there are always these brooding flavors from the woody Bicuishe which are subsumed in the sweet minerality of the Tobala. This play of flavors make you sit and contemplate but there’s a real tension because the mezcal is so restrained that you’re always expecting something else to happen.
Method / Background Notes
Like its relative, the karwinsii ensemble, this one is an argument for a different form of ensemble. You rarely see this sort of combination, perhaps because it’s such a balancing act, and this label is a demonstration of possibility. The match of these two agaves with clay pot distillation is made in celestial places, it’s one of the more intellectual mezcals out there exactly because it makes you think.
