Mexicano

Mexicano is the most widely used producer name for Agave rhodacantha along Mexico's Pacific slope. The binomial parses as rhod- ("red") plus -acantha ("spine"), a literal description of the species: a tall, narrow rosette whose marginal teeth turn coppery to reddish-brown as the leaves mature, especially at the leaf base.

Geographically, the name tracks the species' core range. In Jalisco and Nayarit, mexicano shows up in raicilla ensambles and occasionally in single-variety bottlings; in Oaxaca's Sierra Sur and Miahuatlán districts, it appears in mezcal bottlings alongside karwinskii sub-varieties and tobalá. A common alternative name in the same regions is Maguey de mecate ("rope agave"), a reference to the long thin fibers in the leaf that were traditionally used for cordage.

A distinctive cultural pattern in the Pacific-slope range is that mexicano is often planted along agricultural fence lines, the rows of plants serving as a living boundary marker between fields. The trunkless rosettes can reach two to three meters across and four meters tall at flowering, which makes them effective living fencing as well as a long-cycle crop that does not compete with annual rotations on either side.

Maturation runs twelve to fifteen years; the piña matures large (forty to seventy kilograms in unstressed plants) and the spirit tendency is broad and round, with citrus-peel, baked-fruit, and faint pine notes. A. rhodacantha is also one of the parent populations from which cultivated A. tequilana Weber azul was selected, a relationship discussed in the botany chapter.