For years, mezcal sat in the shadow of its popular cousin tequila …known for its worm…and deemed too smokey for a spot on the same shelf as premium spirits. But not anymore. Once banned and later sold in plastic jugs for pennies, the handcrafted spirit has found its way into cocktail bars and Michelin-starred restaurants. No other liquor has seen a greater increase in production in the past decade. Mezcal gets its name from the Aztec word for cooked agave– a thorny plant sacred to Mexico for thousands of years. The vast majority of mezcal is made in the southern state of Oaxaca… where family-owned distilleries dot the landscape. We went to meet the mezcaleros as they labor to quench the world’s thirst for mezcal.

Mezcaleros harvest agave year round but it’s no low-hanging fruit. Pried from the earth, the spikes are removed by machete…revealing the heart – the piña – which looks like a hundred pound pineapple…Agave takes its sweet time to ripen, up to 30 years for some varieties. It grows in the valleys that run between the Sierra Madre mountains– Here in Oaxaca, the crossroads of indigenous and spanish colonial cultures, the birthplace of mezcal. And Santiago Matatlan is its cradle. 

The Hernandez brothers, Armando and Alvaro – are fourth-generation mezcaleros from an indigenous Zapotec family. They learned the craft from their father, Silverio. Today they run Mal de Amor, one of Matatlán’s largest distilleries, or palenques.

Armando Hernandez (in Spanish/English translation): We make mezcal without hurry, meaning everything in its time. We don’t add or do anything to speed up production. But we make it nonstop – 365 days a year, the entire day.

Cecilia Vega: Is it different from the way your father made it?

Alvaro Hernandez: No.

Armando Hernandez (in Spanish/English translation): No, it’s the same. We conserve all the traditions, everything we were taught. And everything is done by hand. 

Agave was first distilled here in the 1600s …Mexicans have been drinking mezcal at baptisms, funerals and every occasion in between ever since. And let’s clear this up early: tequila is a type of mezcal, made with blue agave mostly in the state of Jalisco. But most tequila has been mass produced, made by machines, since the 70s. 

Artisanal mezcal resists machinery – the agave is roasted in underground pits for days, then it’s crushed by horse-drawn mill. The mash is fermented in wooden barrels… and distilled twice in copper vats. No temperature dials or controls…bubbles indicate the alcohol content.

Cecilia Vega: Who knows more about the process?

Armando Hernandez (in Spanish/English translation): I think he may know more But I drink it more. (laugh)

At Mal de Amor, they offer Napa-style tours of their agave fields. Mezcal is now a half billion dollar a year industry… but in the 1980s and 90s, Armando and Alvaro told us production of mezcal could barely support the family.

Armando Hernandez (in Spanish/English translation): The price of mezcal was very low. It was miserable.

Cecilia Vega: What was it?

Armando Hernandez (in Spanish/English translation): 7 pesos for a liter of mezcal.

Cecilia Vega: Less than a dollar.

Armando Hernandez (in Spanish/English translation): And we were ten children. Sunday was the only day we could afford a cup of milk and a piece of bread. So we decided to go. 

Armando left Mexico first, alone– bound for California.

Cecilia Vega: Do you remember the day you left?

Armando Hernandez (in Spanish/English translation): Yes, it was the 3rd of December 1992. I was 12 years old. I have children of my own now and I could never bring myself to let them cross the border alone. It was a sad goodbye. Very painful to leave the family behind.

Cecilia Vega: How did you get there?

Armando Hernandez (in Spanish): Como todo migrante 

Cecilia Vega: Con coyote?

Armando Hernandez (in Spanish/English translation): Like all migrants…With a coyote, smuggled across the border… 

Alvaro eventually joined him in Los Angeles…they spent a decade working in bars and restaurants, when…the plot twisted: artisanal became hip, and mezcal’s popularity boomed. Alvaro began to dream about returning to the family business.

Alvaro Hernandez (in Spanish/English translation): I had plans drawn up for the palenque and I showed Armando.

Armando Hernandez (in Spanish/English translation): Alvaro came in with a plan for his palenque, and he spread it on the bed and said, “I’m going to do this” And I told him, “You’re crazy. How are you going to make a living?”

Armando was skeptical…until he noticed shots of mezcal going for $10each…he says he looked down at the label on a bottle one day, and it was from their hometown.

Cecilia Vega: And you finally told your brother, “I told you so.” (laughter)

Alvaro Hernandez (in Spanish) : Sí, te lo dije. (laugh)

So Armando and Alvaro went back home to ramp up the family palenque.

Enter John Rexer and Gilberto Marquez, of the mezcal brand Ilegal…made from 100% espadin, the variety of agave that ripens the fastest.

Cecilia Vega: So how far out does the Ilegal agave go? I mean, is this all Ilegal?

Gilberto Marquez: Yeah. There’s about– 2,500 plants per acre. There’s about five acres out here.

Cecilia Vega: This is a lot of espadin, right? 

Today, Olegal is one of the top-selling mezcal brands. but it, too, started humbly. Rexer – an expat New Yorker – was in search of a steady supply of mezcal to serve at a bar he owned in Guatemala.

John Rexer: I would take a bus up from Guatemala. It’s a 24-hour bus ride. Along the way, you can pull a string in that bus and say, “I wanna stop here.” Walk to a village. Wait until lights came on somewhere and say, “Hey, do you know anybody who makes good mezcal around here?” And invariably, someone would have an uncle, a brother, a cousin.

Cecilia Vega: Tengo un Tio

John Rexer: Tengo un Tio (laugh) Sí. Yeah, that’s exactly it.

Cecilia Vega: Everybody has an uncle.

As the name on the bottle suggests, Rexer’s operation wasn’t exactly legal. 

 Cecilia Vega: Is it true that you once dressed like a priest to have to get this across a border?

John Rexer: Listen, I went through 12 years of Catholic school.

Cecilia Vega: Me too–

John Rexer: I knew how to play the role…

It was his friend Gilberto Marquez who introduced him to the Hernandez brothers 

John Rexer: And we rolled down here And it was very, very, very tiny. And they were making– very small amounts.

Armando Hernandez (in Spanish/English translation): And he asks me, “Do you have more of this mezcal?” And we said, “Yes, we have 10,000 liters and it took us like two years to make. And John says to us, “I want it all!” 

A sidebar, and this may go without saying, but Rexer has swigged his fair share of mezcal.

John Rexer: (Cough) Excuse me… 

Cecilia Vega: Do you want a water? Yeah, no. Take a break, you’re good. He’s like “Do I want a water?”

John Rexer: You know, there’s an expression, the best mezcal is the one in front of you. It’s not entirely true. You don’t want to cover it in smoke, You want to taste the agave.

Cecilia Vega: A lotta people say they don’t like mezcal because of the smoke.

John Rexer: Obviously, you’re in a smoky environment, right? When you dig up the pit oven there’s smoke everywhere. So there’s a lot of early mezcals that came into the States that are heavy smoked.

Cecilia Vega: Has mezcal gotten a bad rap on that front?

John Rexer: I think in the early days, it did. But people began to discover no the agaves have particularly unique flavors.

Rexer asked brothers Armando and Alvaro to go into business — and he made a promise: if they could produce the mezcal, he’d sell it around the world. They’d been burned by false promises before, so they weighed his offer in their native language.

Cecilia Vega: You spoke in Zapotec so he wouldn’t understand?

Armando Hernandez (in Spanish/English translation): I said to Alvaro in Zapotec, “Do you believe him?” And he said “I don’t know.” But we figured, let’s see.

John Rexer: I said, “Listen, I’ll pay you upfront so that we can get started. 

Armando Hernandez (in Spanish/English translation): Two days later, we had the deposit in our account for all 10,000 liters. He said each month I’ll keep making deposits.” So we made more – 500 liters, a thousand, two thousand. And it grew like that. 

Now their partnership produces 3,000 bottles of mezcal a day, almost all of them for export. And every bottle is certified by the Mexican government – stamped with a hologram to mark denomination of origin… like champagne or cognac.

We’d heard there are rules about how to drink this artisanal mezcal. The good stuff isn’t for shots or diluting in cocktails. It’s for sipping. So we asked Marquez… the former bartender who now promotes Ilegal. 

Cecilia Vega: Favorite way to drink it.

Gilberto Marquez: Spicy margarita.

Cecilia Vega: Oh. Wait a second, I thought you weren’t supposed to drink mezcal in a margarita.

Gilberto Marquez: You do wanna enjoy mezcal neat. But there’s nothing wrong with having it in a cocktail, especially if we’re trying to get folks to try it for the first time. It’s an introduction to mezcal.

Marquez poured us a joven, the colorless mezcal you’ll find in most bottles…

Gil Marquez: This is– 100% espadin.

Cecilia Vega: So joven means young.

Gilberto Marquez: Joven means young, unaged. 

Cecilia Vega: Salud–

Gilberto Marquez: Salud. (clink) 

Cecilia Vega: This one tastes spicy to me. 

Gilberto Marquez: So smoke is not the first thing that you taste…

Cecilia Vega: It’s definitely there but I would not call this smokey. 

Gilberto Marquez: Yes.

Aging mezcal is a Mexican tradition. Ilegal does it in American Oak, the same way bourbon is made. 

John Rexer: So this is the añejo. And this is aged 15 months.

Cecilia Vega: Color is definitely darker.

John Rexer: Yep.

Cecilia Vega: Wow. So good. How would you drink this one?

John Rexer: Absolutely neat, 100%.

Cecilia Vega: Has anyone ever said to you, “Hey, what’s a gringo like you doin’–“

John Rexer: “In a place like this?”

Cecilia Vega: –“sellin’ Oaxaca– (laugh) Oaxacan mezcal?”

John Rexer: Yes. I’ve gotten pushback over the years. “You’re a foreigner.” 

But I’m someone who fell in love with the rhythm and the pace of Oaxaca. And fell in love with mezcal.

He’s no longer the only foreigner in this partnership. Bacardi, the largest privately held global spirits company, acquired Ilegal last year in a deal worth a reported $100 million. 

John Rexer: When we started to grow the brand, one of the questions I asked myself was, “How do you fall in love with something and then not destroy the thing you fell in love with by making it grow?”

Cecilia Vega: Can you do that with an international conglomerate like Bacardi?

John Rexer: I think it’s a great question. Because it’s not just a beautiful liquor but it’s certain things that we’re trying to preserve and believe in. This is a family business. We have to respect the artisanal production. We can never let this become industrial. 

Cecilia Vega: What does the deal with Bacardi mean for you?

Armando Hernandez (in Spanish/English translation): What’s going to change is many people’s lives in this community. It is a benefit for the whole community.

The palenque now employs a hundred people from Matatlán and beyond. Including their 87-year-old father, the mezcalero emeritus. Armando and Alvaro translated from Zapotec to Spanish. We asked what Senor Hernandez thought of his sons’ mezcal. 

Cecilia Vega: Does it live up to the family name?

Silverio Hernandez (English translation): “That’s why I drink it. If not, I wouldn’t drink it.” 

The Hernandez brothers are expanding the family palenque…construction is already underway.

Cecilia Vega: So if there’s the American dream, is this the Mexican dream?

Armando and Alvaro Hernandez: Sueño Mexicano. 

Armando Hernandez (in Spanish/English translation): It’s the Mexican dream. It’s something we never imagined.

Oaxaca, a diverse patch of four million people on the southwest curl of Mexico’s tail, may be one of the country’s poorest states, but it boasts one of the fastest-growing economies. Both pillars of that economy, agriculture and tourism, have been revitalized by the explosion in global demand for mezcal. Tens of thousands of Oaxacan families produce mezcal for a living, mostly in small, handcrafted batches. The deeper you travel into Oaxaca’s countryside, the harder mezcaleros cling to their ancestral methods and the louder they’ll tell you: there’s a price to pay for this mezcal boom.

Insulated by peaks and valleys, Oaxaca has its rugged terrain to thank for its diversity…

The Zapotec people flourished here for nearly a thousand years, their ancestral capital preserved at Monte Alban, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

Oaxaca is home to 16 different indigenous groups, more than anywhere else in the country. 

The state capital, Oaxaca City, is a technicolor hub of markets and vendors — with its 16th century cathedral, Santo Domingo de Guzmán, towering over the stone streets.

On the coast, Puerto Escondido, the hidden port, draws surfers from around the world who come to ride a massive break in the Pacific called the Mexican Pipeline.

Then there’s the food. Oaxaca is called the land of seven moles, after its rich stew made with dozens of ingredients.

To wash it all down: hundreds of varieties of small-batch mezcal, many made from wild agave. The most sought-after stuff is crafted deep in Oaxaca’s rural communities and has tourists venturing out there.

At the Real Minero distillery, or palenque, we met John Douglas, a bar owner, who makes regular trips down from Bourbon Country, Kentucky.

Cecilia Vega: So what gives?

John Douglas: It’s delicious and there’s a story behind it about flavor, about people, about histories, about, “Jeez, how exactly is this made?” 

Cecilia Vega: How many bottles will you bring home?

John Douglas: Oh, gosh. You’re not the TSA, are you? (laugh)

Here, the agave roast is a smoky, well-choreographed ballet; everyone knows their part. 

And in charge… Graciela Ángeles Carreñ … a mezcalera with a reputation as a leader in the industry…

Her family has been making mezcal since it was more bootleg than above board. 

Cecilia Vega: And your grandmother sold mezcal on the back of a burro?

Graciela Ángeles Carreño (in Spanish/English translation): So my great-grandfather produced the mezcal and my great-grandmother sold it. And why did she sell it? Because nobody inspected the women at the time. She made a special knock at the door, open the door, and the woman with the donkey takes out her mezcal… 

Cecilia Vega: Opens her store. (laugh)

Graciela Ángeles Carreño: Aquí está el mezcal ahora.

The Carreño family distills in clay pots. eleven-thousand liters of mezcal a year, some 8,000 bottles. Many go for upwards of a hundred dollars. 

making artisanal mezcal is part science, part intuition. and it comes with a funk…which we saw and smelled inside carreño’s fermentation room.

Graciela Ángeles Carreño (in Spanish/English translation): Right now it’s not too fermented, you can put your mouth here and try it. 

Cecilia Vega: Very bitter.

Graciela Ángeles Carreño (in Spanish/English translation): Yes, and you can taste the alcohol. 

Cecilia Vega: It tastes like beer.

Graciela Ángeles Carreño: Yeah.

Carreño showed us how she knows when it’s ready for the next step.

Graciela Ángeles Carreño (in Spanish/English translation): If I put my ear to it, listen. It’s like a stomach.

Cecilia Vega: It is like a stomach. Oh, wow..

Cecilia Vega: How much time left for this?

Graciela Ángeles Carreño (in Spanish/English translation): I think maybe another four days. 

Graciela Ángeles Carreño: (in Spanish) This is where the flavors are produced. 

Cecilia Vega: This is where the flavor comes.

Graciela Ángeles Carreño: (in Spanish) This is like the magic part. 

Cecilia Vega: This is your magic.

Graciela Ángeles Carreño (in Spanish): Yes. 

Three hours south of Oaxaca City at the Perez family palenque, we met Lalo Perez, a fifth generation mezcalero …that’s the next generation holding his hand.

The whole family had just pulled an all nighter, tending the fire for their roast…

A community ritual, neighbors came by in the morning to help stack the pinas. And Lalo’s father, Tio Tello, watched over. 

Cecilia Vega: How was the roast last night?

Lalo Perez (in Spanish/English translation): Around 8:00 in the morning, we finally started stacking the piñas… 

Cecilia Vega: (in Spanish): That’s why the gentleman is sleepy, right?

We joked about being beat from the night before…but Lalo says making mezcal doesn’t feel like work. 

Lalo Perez (in Spanish/English translation): From the moment I go out into the countryside to harvest agave I feel like I want to taste it already.

Cecilia Vega: You’re smiling when you tell me this–

Lalo Perez (in Spanish/English translation): (laughs) It’s the joy that mezcal brings me. If you drink five glasses, it brings you even more joy! (laughter)

Lalo walked us through his agave varieties, with names like Madrecuishe and Tepeztate. He told us each gives a unique taste: herbal, mineral, earthy. 

Tio tello insisted we taste for ourselves…and led us to his private stash where he keeps his prized batches. 

Cecilia Vega: Muy diferente. Si, muy diferente. Wow. Tepeztate is the winner.

Lalo has taken over most of the manual labor from his dad, using wooden mallets to crush the roasted agave. He distills batches of about 250 bottles at a time. 

But here’s the thing – mezcal produced by the Perez family can’t technically be called mezcal…it is made in the right region, using the right methods to qualify for denomination of origin. But Lalo told us he doesn’t bother with the bureaucracy of getting it certified by government-approved regulators. 

Cecilia Vega: You don’t put the word “mezcal” on your bottles to sell. Does that bother you?

Lalo Perez (in Spanish/English translation): On the contrary. To certify it, they practically tell you how to make your mezcal. An inspector comes and tells you, “Don’t crush with wooden mallets. Water it down, so that it will pass lab tests. And then I’ll certify it so you can sell it.” We don’t need a government certifier to come and tell us how to make mezcal. 

Cecilia Vega: There’s no doubt in your mind that what’s inside your bottles is mezcal?

Lalo Perez (in Spanish): Yes. It is mezcal.

Maybe so. but Cinco Sentidos, the brand that bottles the Perez family’s product for export, has to label the uncertified mezcal “distilled agave”…

In bars around the world, that’s become a selling point. Small-batch enthusiasts clamor for obscure, limited-run bottles and mezcal by any other name still smells as sweet. 

Graciela Carreño chose to drop denomination of origin two years ago. Her main focus now is her plants– once you harvest agave, that’s it.

Cecilia Vega: This is not like grapes. The crop does not grow back each year. 

Graciela Ángeles Carreño (in Spanish/English translation): You can only benefit from it once in its lifetime and it takes thirty years to give you its best. 

If mezcaleros obsess over their agave, it’s because they’re trying to avoid repeating tequila’s mistakes. Overplanting of blue agave, used in tequila, has rendered that plant more susceptible to disease. Carreño says she worries the same could happen to mezcal’s workhorse variety: espadin.

Graciela Ángeles Carreño (in Spanish/English translation): It’s like tequila, only with mezcal, we plant espadin. Only espadin. The irony is, on the world market, what people want most is not espadin, it’s wild agave.

But wild agave has its own problems. As production of mezcal has increased 700% from 10 years ago, some species of agave are vanishing. So Carreño germinates the seeds from 12 varieties in her nursery. 

Cecilia Vega: How concerned are you about the future of the agave plant in Oaxaca? 

Graciela Ángeles Carreño (in Spanish/English translation): Where do I start? On the one hand we have economic success because this spirit that came from our community is now served in the most famous bars in the world. That makes me happy and proud as a Mexican and Oaxacan. What worries me is the environmental cost, the cultural cost. Because it will not be free. So I think the crossroads right now is recognizing that we need to slow down a little.

Carreño told us mezcal is a reminder to take a moment. So that’s what we did…

Graciela Ángeles Carreño (in Spanish/English translation): Later I’ll tell you the percentage of alcohol. Because these are not low grade.

Cecilia Vega: Oh really? What, how many? (in Spanish) Am I going to be drunk?

Graciela Ángeles Carreño (in Spanish/English translation): No. The main point is not to get drunk, it’s to enjoy it. One bottle and enjoy it. Salud.

Cecilia Vega: Salud.

Graciela Ángeles Carreño: Y (Clink) Bienvenido a Oaxaca. 

Cecilia Vega: Muchimas gracias….Excelente.

Produced by Nathalie Sommer and Kaylee Tully. Broadcast associate, Katie Jahns. Edited by Peter M. Berman.