La Higuera
A Chihuahua sotol made by Maestro Sotolero Gerardo Ruelas in Aldama and imported by the team behind Fidencio Spirits, built as a species-by-species showcase of different Dasylirion plants, including a Texanum bottling that is Mexican-grown despite the plant's name.
At a glance
La Higuera is a sotol made by Maestro Sotolero Gerardo Ruelas, a third-generation sotol-maker, at the Ruelas family distillery in Aldama, just northeast of the city of Chihuahua. It is brought to the United States by the team behind Fidencio Spirits, a house better known for its Oaxacan mezcal, which built La Higuera as a sotol equivalent: a line designed to show how much a single spirit can change when only the plant changes.
La Higuera is one of four distinct brands that all come out of the same Ruelas production stable in Aldama. The others are Coyote, Oro de Coyame, and Onó. They share a maker and a core method but are sold as separate brands. Where the others each tend to settle on one species, La Higuera makes the comparison the whole point: it releases bottling after bottling, each named for a single Dasylirion species.
A line built to compare species
Sotol is not an agave spirit. It is distilled from the heart of the Dasylirion genus, the desert-spoon plant, a botanical lineage separate from agave that grows wild across the Chihuahuan Desert. La Higuera's organizing idea is to bottle the genus one species at a time so the differences are tasteable side by side. The core releases name their plant on the label: Texanum, Cedrosanum (Dasylirion cedrosanum), Wheeleri (Dasylirion wheeleri), and Leiophyllum, among others. The house has also released small special batches sourced from beyond Chihuahua, and a few "other identity" desert-spoon spirits that fall outside the sotol Denomination of Origin entirely.
"Texanum" is Mexican sotol, not a Texas product
The bottling most likely to confuse a newcomer is the Texanum. The species name Dasylirion texanum points to Texas, and the plant does grow on both sides of the border. But La Higuera Texanum is Chihuahua sotol, not a Texas-made spirit. Every plant used for it is harvested in northern Chihuahua, near (but inside) the Mexican side of the border, and the spirit is distilled at the Ruelas vinata in Aldama under Mexico's sotol Denomination of OriginDenomination of Origin (denominación de origen): a legal protection tying a product name to a defined geographic area and ruleset. Sotol's covers the states of Chihuahua, Durango, and Coahuila; the species name texanum is botany, not a place of production..
How La Higuera is made
La Higuera follows the traditional Chihuahua artesanal method, run species by species. The desert-spoon hearts are cooked in an outdoor conical oven fired by wood over hot rocks; the different varieties are milled by hand with axes; fermentation runs on wild yeast in roughly 1,000-liter pine vats; and the spirit is twice distilled in copper alembic stills. Because each species is kept separate from harvest through distillation, the bottle in your hand traces back to one plant type rather than a blend, which is what makes the side-by-side comparison meaningful.
High confidenceHigh confidence: the main claims on this page are backed by primary sources (regulatory documents, peer-reviewed research, or direct producer attestation) and have been verified against the editorial correction log.That La Higuera is made by Gerardo Ruelas in Aldama, Chihuahua, as a single-species line and imported by the team behind Fidencio Spirits is stated consistently across the importer's materials and independent tasting coverage, as is the point that the Texanum is Mexican-harvested Chihuahua sotol rather than a Texas product. The exact roster of species in the line shifts as small batches come and go; the species named here are the ones documented at the time this entry was verified.Where La Higuera sits
La Higuera is the most explicitly educational of the Ruelas family's four labels: where Oro de Coyame is the high-volume wheeleri flagship, Onó the cocktail-focused cedrosanum bottling, and Coyote the older leiophyllum name, La Higuera lays the whole genus out as a flight. In the wider Chihuahua landscape it sits firmly in the traditional, copper-distilled half alongside the Jacquez family's Sotol Por Siempre and the Coyame bottlings of Flor del Desierto. For a reader trying to learn what Dasylirion tastes like, plant by plant, it is the single most useful brand on the shelf.
See also
Sotol
Mexico's Chihuahuan Desert spirit, distilled not from agave but from the Dasylirion genus. Protected as a Denomination of Origin since 2002 across Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Durango, governed by NOM-159-SCFI-2004, and at the center of a live cross-border IP dispute with Texas producers.
Coyote
A traditional Chihuahua sotol from one of the oldest surviving vinatas in the state, made at the Ruelas family distillery in Aldama by Maestro Sotolero Gerardo Ruelas from wild Dasylirion leiophyllum.