Hacienda de Banuelos Mezcal Masparillo

Hacienda de Banuelos Masparillo is an unusual joven mezcal from El Teul in Zacatecas, a state just north of Jalisco that the Banuelos family has helped bring back into mezcal production. It is made from wild Masparillo, a short, squat agave that grows on the estate hills and takes around twelve years to mature, with maestro Jaime Banuelos the first in the region to distil it. The southern Zacatecas terroir lends a clear mineral thread that carries through the glass.
The piñas are roasted for about 72 hours in an underground stone oven, crushed with a tahona, fermented with wild yeast in wood and then double distilled in stainless steel and a copper alembic. There is no roasting smoke here. Instead the nose runs to citrus, watercress, a lactic yogurt tang and overripe fruit, while the palate turns herbal and vegetal with a quiet note of caramel, clear and round in texture.