Nocheluna Sotol
A wild-harvested Chihuahua sotol distilled in Aldama by Don Eduardo "Lalo" Arrieta, developed by the Mexican spirits group Casa Lumbre with the musician Lenny Kravitz as a partner, and distributed internationally with the backing of Pernod Ricard.
At a glance
Nocheluna is a sotol distilled in Aldama, in the desert state of Chihuahua, and built to carry the spirit to an international audience. Sotol is the regional drink of the Chihuahuan Desert, distilled from Dasylirion, the slow-growing rosette plant locally called sotol or "desert spoon," and not from agave. The name joins the Spanish words for "night" and "moon." The brand launched in 2022.
Nocheluna is the clearest current example of a traditional desert spirit entering the global, celebrity-and-multinational tier that tequila reached years ago. The spirit itself is made by a fourth-generation master distiller, Don Eduardo "Lalo" Arrieta, working with the sotol specialist Ricardo Pico. The brand was developed by the Mexican spirits group Casa Lumbre, the same house behind several modern agave and cane brands, has the American musician Lenny Kravitz as a partner, and is distributed internationally with the backing of the drinks multinational Pernod Ricard. Holding the village still and the global distribution machine in the same frame is the whole point of the page.
The maker and the backers, kept distinct
It is worth separating who makes Nocheluna from who sells it, because the brand's story blurs the two. The distillation is the work of Don Lalo Arrieta in Aldama, drawing on a family line of vinateros (sotol distillers) and on wild desert spoon gathered from ranch land in Chihuahua. That is the traditional craft side of the brand. The commercial side is a partnership: Casa Lumbre developed and built the brand, Lenny Kravitz is attached as a creative partner and public face, and Pernod Ricard provides the international reach. The most accurate mental model is a traditionally distilled sotol wrapped in a modern, well-funded global brand, rather than either a purely village product or a purely corporate one.
Medium confidenceMedium confidence: most claims are backed by reputable secondary sources, but some details rely on inference or have not yet been verified against primary sources.The distiller (Don Lalo Arrieta), the Aldama base, the wild-harvest sourcing, the involvement of Casa Lumbre, Lenny Kravitz, and Pernod Ricard, the 2022 launch, and the 43% strength are all stated consistently across the brand's own materials, trade press, and independent review coverage. The precise legal structure of the ownership and distribution arrangement (who owns what share, the exact nature of the Pernod Ricard relationship) is described differently across sources and is not fully public, so this site reports the partnership in general terms and does not assert a specific equity split. This is a litigation-sensitive area for celebrity-backed spirits generally; the framing here attributes roles rather than stating contested ownership facts as settled.Wild harvest and the desert question
Nocheluna is made from wild-harvested desert spoon, gathered after roughly twelve to fifteen years of growth from ranch land in the Chihuahuan Desert, much of it described as sustainably managed. As with any wild desert spirit, that sourcing ties the brand directly to the health of the desert: wild Dasylirion grows slowly and does not return quickly once cut, so a brand built for global scale on wild plants carries the same sustainability scrutiny that wild agave brings to mezcal. The hearts are roasted, fermented, and distilled in the traditional way, and the spirit is bottled at 43% ABV with a profile reviewers describe as smooth, herbal, and gently smoky. Sotol is governed by the standard NOM-159-SCFI-2004A regulatory-standard NOM is a federal Mexican product norm. Unlike facility NOMs (4-digit identifiers of specific distilleries), a standard NOM defines the rules for an entire category of product: which raw materials are permitted, where the product may be made, how it must be processed, and how the bottle must be labeled. Standard NOMs are written as "NOM-XXX-SCFI-YYYY" where XXX is the standard number and YYYY is the year. NOM-159-SCFI-2004 (Sotol). The official Mexican standard for sotol production. Names only two legally permitted species (Dasylirion cedrosanum and D. duranguensis), limits production to Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Durango, and permits up to 49% non-Dasylirion sugar (analogous to tequila mixto). Notably excludes D. wheeleri, which is the most-distributed sotol plant in the Chihuahuan Desert; a regulatory gap. and may be produced in Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Durango.
Where Nocheluna sits
Nocheluna sits at the commercial frontier of sotol: a traditionally distilled spirit pushed onto the world stage by a celebrity partnership and multinational distribution, the way Casamigos and its peers did for tequila. Reading it against a producer-credited, small-scale sotol such as Sotol Clande or the established Chihuahua house Hacienda de Chihuahua is the most useful exercise: it shows what happens to a regional desert spirit when global money and a famous name arrive, and it raises the question, still open for sotol, of whether scale and tradition can grow together.
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.
Hacienda de Chihuahua
An industrial-scale Chihuahua sotol producer founded in 1989 by Federico Elías and master distiller José Daumas; widely credited as the pioneer of the modern commercial sotol category, with the most internationally distributed lineup (Plata, Rústico, Reposado, Añejo, Oro Puro, H5, cream liqueurs) and a steam-cook plus copper-column production process that distinguishes it from the artesanal vinata tradition.