Lineño
A regional name encountered on some Oaxacan mezcals whose botanical attribution is not well documented. Some producers treat it as a Karwinskii subtype, others as a distinct local form. Best read as producer-specific and unverified until the maker's declared species is checked.
Regions: Oaxaca
Lineño is a regional name that turns up on a small number of Oaxacan mezcals, and its botanical identity is genuinely unsettled. Published sources are thin: some producers treat lineño as a subtype within the Agave karwinskii complex, the same long, trunk-forming group that yields cuixe, barril, and madrecuixe, while others describe it as a distinct local form that does not map cleanly onto any named species. There is not enough documentation to commit to either reading.
What we do not know outweighs what we do. The name appears to be producer-specific, and without the maker's own declared species it should not be treated as a botanical identifier. This site lists A. karwinskii only as one hypothesis among others, not as a confident mapping, and assigns the entry a low confidence and high ambiguity to reflect that. The general reliability hierarchy applies here with particular force: trust the producer's declared species and the printed binomial first, and the village name last. For why so many Oaxacan local names resist a clean botanical fit, see the botany chapter.
Flavor notes for lineño are not reliably documented in published sources, and this site does not assert a sensory profile for it on the strength of a handful of bottles. As more producer documentation and field identification become available, this entry will be revisited.