El Occidental Mezcal Puebla Tobala

El Occidental is a young project from 2019 that looks to the mezcal traditions of western Mexico, and this bottling comes from the mountain and canyon country around Acatlan de Osorio in Puebla. It is a joven made entirely from wild Tobala, the small slow growing Agave potatorum, by maestro Antonio Galindo, and bottled unaged to show the species and the Puebla terroir.
The piñas are roasted underground for three days over wood and hot rock, milled by mechanical shredder, then fermented with wild yeast in eleven hundred litre wooden vats fed by deep well water. A double distillation in copper alembic follows. Tobala from this high dry country reads saline and bright with a fresh mineral edge, the palate lightly tart and stony before a long finish of cooked agave. Bottled at 47.3% with a medium, silky body.