Sotoleros Sotol Ensamble Venado “Pechuga” Lupe López

This Venado bottling from the Sotoleros range is a northern Mexican distillate made in the pechuga style by Lupe Lopez at Las Escobas, deep in the Sierra Madre Occidental of northwestern Chihuahua near the Sonora line. Venado is Spanish for deer, the clue to its method, and the blend is fifty one percent wild Agave shrevei and forty nine percent Dasylirion wheeleri sotol, drawn from a 2021 batch of only 120 bottles.
Lopez roasts the agave and Dasylirion in an underground conical pit for two to four days, mills by hand with an axe, then ferments four to five days with spring water and wild yeast. Before the second distillation a cloth holding venison, bay leaves and lemons is hung in the wooden condenser, the pechuga step that defines the spirit. The result shows black liquorice, mandarin, satsuma and orange, lifted by peppermint and incense with a wheat bran note. Profile shifts by lot. Bottled at 46.4 percent.