Rezpiral - 2020 Tepextate Mezcal by Berta Vasquez

Rezpiral Mezcal - 2020 Tepextate Mezcal by Berta Vasquez

750ml, 48.8% abv.

A note from Drammers Club: Berta Vasquez is one of the great makers of mezcal, and we had the honor of visiting her at her palenque in Sal Baltazar Chichicapam, a couple hours outside of Oaxaca. There are of course very few great women at the top of the mezcal game, and Berta is one of very best anywhere, so we are extremely proud to be able to celebrate her mezcal with this exclusive bottling. She comes from a family of mezcaleros, both on her side (her grandparents, her brother, her father) and her husband was a mezcalero too. But when he tragically died, with a family of young children to take care of, she took the reins and started running her own small palenque. When we visited with her, we sat with her in her living room, next to a shrine honoring her husband and other family members who were taken from her too early, and she told us the tragic story of how her husband died, a topic she does not shy away from. We were interrupted every 20 minutes or so as someone from town would come by with an empty bottle to stock up on one of her mezcals, and she had 8 or 9 varieties in stock when we visited her last.

To date our club has selected 7 batches of mezcal, from different producers all around Oaxaca, but this batch features by far the rarest agave we have selected to date. In the whisky world, we celebrate old whiskies, knowing that the folks at Pappy Van Winkle can’t just snap their fingers and have more 23 year old bourbon in stock anytime soon — all they can do is start laying the groundwork to have more of it in 23 years. A similar phenomenon is at work with Tepextate, but here of course the mezcal is not aged in barrels, but it is equally rare because the plants themselves can need as much as 25 to 35 years to grow before it has enough sugar in the plant to convert into alcohol. So, as a traditionally wild-grown agave, we may have to wait even longer for future batches of tepextate than we will even for Pappy 23yo. All of this of course makes it more expensive, and tepextate is often one of the most expensive mezcals on the shelf. This batch was distilled in February of 2020 and yielded 175 liters.

Why did we select this batch? When you taste it, it’ll be obvious to you too. We’ve seen Rezpiral release blends that Berta has done that include tepextate (Series 4 featured a blend of tepextate with mexicano), but to our knowledge this is the first 100% tepextate batch that they’ve brought to the US. And by the way, in addition to buying the mezcal from the producers at or above the normal market prices, Rezpiral also (on top of that) gives back 30% of the proceeds to the mezcaleros and mezcaleras, which is unheard of in the industry — one of the many reasons we’re so proud to work with them.

TASTING NOTES: Freshly-cut grass features prominently on the nose. For some tepextates that can be a bit overpowering, but here it’s very gentle, like you picked up the scent on a soft breeze from the next farm over, and also a soft earthy note, a little bit of honeydew. On the palate, a sweet wintergreen takes over, and the longer you hold it in your mouth, bold vegetal notes seem to pop up out of nowhere. On the finish, the wintergreen is still there, the vegetal notes give way to a creamier version of themselves, and just as its about to fade away, we get the slightest hint of black licorice. This is one of the best tepextates we’ve ever tasted, and we’re thrilled to death that we were able to secure it for our club.

Btw, technically you’ll see on the bottle that it is “Spirits distilled from agave” and the word “mezcal” does not appear. That is because (like all Rezpiral products), they do not pay the fees associated with being certified as mezcal, though most if not all of their products would almost certainly meet the criteria if they did pay those fees. We’ve had many spirited debates here at Drammers Club over the years about the pros and cons of not getting certified, but regardless, take our word for it that (with or without the certification), this is distilled agave spirit at the very highest level of artistry.

This release is only available to registered Members and Observers of Drammers Club - More Information at Drammers.com

Drammers Pick #31