Mina Real Mezcal Espadin Blanco

Mina Real Espadin Blanco is a joven mezcal from Destileria Real de Minas in Santa Catarina Minas, the clay pot village of Oaxaca and the same house behind Don Amado. Built from semi cultivated Espadin, Agave angustifolia, grown at around 1450 metres, it serves as an accessible entry into the mineral, supple world of clay distilled mezcal.
Unusually it is roasted not in an earth pit but in a cantera limestone oven over thirty hours, a method that spares a great deal of firewood, so the spirit reads only lightly smoky. The cooked agave is shredded, fermented with its fibres in pine vats on wild airborne yeast, then double distilled in wood fired 60 litre clay pots at about 53% before reverse osmosis water brings it to 46%. The nose shows agave, fig, cinnamon, brown sugar and sapote with a vegetal edge, while the palate is mild and elegant with black pepper, cayenne and a mineral finish from the clay.