El Jolgorio Mezcal Madrecuishe

El Jolgorio Mezcal Madrecuishe is a joven made from Madrecuixe, one of the many local forms of the Agave Karwinskii complex, bottled by the Casa Cortes collective that since 2010 has gathered single maestro mezcals from across Oaxaca and writes each batch's detail on the label by hand. Madrecuixe grows with a dense piña and relatively little water, which pushes its trademark minerality forward.
That density shows in a nose of wet stone, clay and floral notes touched with grass, damp earth and fruit. The palate stays mineral, earthy and floral, joined by fruit, a hint of chocolate and herbal mint. Pit roasted in the artesanal Oaxacan manner and bottled unaged at 47 percent, it leans dry and stony, and like all El Jolgorio bottlings it shifts batch to batch as the wild agave and the season dictate.