Terms
Production methods, style descriptions, and apparatus terms — the vocabulary you need to read a Mexican-spirits label.
Production methods, style descriptions, and apparatus terms — the vocabulary you need to read a Mexican-spirits label.
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A long slender hollowed bottle gourd used by the tlachiquero to draw aguamiel from a tapped maguey by lung suction; the working tool of pulque harvest.
Production termA production term: a word used in the process of making the spirit. A step in the cook, a milling technique, a role on the production floor, an ingredient, or a fermentation choice.Honey water: the unfermented sweet sap of the maguey at 8 to 14 percent sugar; ferments into pulque or distills into destilado de aguamiel.
Apparatus termAn apparatus term: a physical piece of equipment or vessel used to make, sample, or drink the spirit. A still, an oven, a fermentation tank, a sampling tool, or a traditional glass.The copper pot still of Arabic-Spanish lineage (from al-anbiq); the dominant artisanal still architecture for tequila and most mezcal, raicilla, and bacanora.
Style termA style term: the way a finished bottle is categorized or presented to the drinker. An aging tier, a labeling category, a serving ritual, or a garnish that travels with the spirit."Aged." Tequila or mezcal aged between one and three years in oak barrels of no more than 600 litres. The tier where oak integration deepens and the spirit takes on color, vanilla, and caramel.
Apparatus termAn apparatus term: a physical piece of equipment or vessel used to make, sample, or drink the spirit. A still, an oven, a fermentation tank, a sampling tool, or a traditional glass.The copper pot-still lineage that the Spanish carried from Andalusia into central, eastern, and northern Mexico through colonial monasteries and haciendas, and the architectural counterpart to the Filipino still in the two-channel synthesis of Mexican distillation origins.
Production termA production term: a word used in the process of making the spirit. A step in the cook, a milling technique, a role on the production floor, an ingredient, or a fermentation choice.An industrial pressure cooker for agave; saturated steam at 1 to 1.5 bar for 6 to 14 hours, used by most large-volume tequila producers, producing the cleanest base spirit with minimal Maillard depth.
Production termA production term: a word used in the process of making the spirit. A step in the cook, a milling technique, a role on the production floor, an ingredient, or a fermentation choice.The milled fiber pulp left after a cooked agave piña is crushed; included in fermentation in mezcal, separated and discarded in tequila.
Style termA style term: the way a finished bottle is categorized or presented to the drinker. An aging tier, a labeling category, a serving ritual, or a garnish that travels with the spirit.The classical Mexican aperitivo. Three small glasses in the colors of the national flag (lime juice in green, blanco tequila in white, sangrita in red) sipped in alternation.
Style termA style term: the way a finished bottle is categorized or presented to the drinker. An aging tier, a labeling category, a serving ritual, or a garnish that travels with the spirit.Kisses, not shots. The phrase a maestro mezcalero uses to direct the drinker's pacing of a good mezcal. A 45ml pour should last twenty minutes of small sips.
Style termA style term: the way a finished bottle is categorized or presented to the drinker. An aging tier, a labeling category, a serving ritual, or a garnish that travels with the spirit.Unaged tequila or mezcal, bottled immediately or within sixty days of distillation. The truest expression of agave-and-still character before oak enters the conversation.
Apparatus termAn apparatus term: a physical piece of equipment or vessel used to make, sample, or drink the spirit. A still, an oven, a fermentation tank, a sampling tool, or a traditional glass.The iconic small Mexican shot glass for tequila. Straight-sided, cylindrical, typically 30 to 45 ml; the name traces to a 19th-century charro horseback drinking horn.
Apparatus termAn apparatus term: a physical piece of equipment or vessel used to make, sample, or drink the spirit. A still, an oven, a fermentation tank, a sampling tool, or a traditional glass.A small unglazed clay jug from Jalisco used to serve a tequila highball; the vessel's porous walls give the drink an earthy mineral character and lend it the cocktail's name.
Production termA production term: a word used in the process of making the spirit. A step in the cook, a milling technique, a role on the production floor, an ingredient, or a fermentation choice.The practice of cutting off an agave's flowering stalk (the quiote) before it can emerge, keeping the stored sugars in the piña instead of letting them be withdrawn into the flower.
Apparatus termAn apparatus term: a physical piece of equipment or vessel used to make, sample, or drink the spirit. A still, an oven, a fermentation tank, a sampling tool, or a traditional glass.The thick-walled fired-clay still architecture required for Mezcal Ancestral; an indigenous-or-syncretic still type whose continuous tradition is documented from the seventeenth century forward, distinct from the popular but biomolecularly unsupported claim that pre-Columbian Capacha vessels were stills.
Apparatus termAn apparatus term: a physical piece of equipment or vessel used to make, sample, or drink the spirit. A still, an oven, a fermentation tank, a sampling tool, or a traditional glass.A small, shallow clay or glass cup used for sipping mezcal, particularly in Oaxaca; its low open shape brings the nose close to the surface of the spirit.
Style termA style term: the way a finished bottle is categorized or presented to the drinker. An aging tier, a labeling category, a serving ritual, or a garnish that travels with the spirit.A Mexican-specific practice: tequila is aged in oak then carbon-filtered to strip the color while retaining most of the aged character. Recognized commercially but not codified as a separate aging class in NOM-006-SCFI-2012.
Production termA production term: a word used in the process of making the spirit. A step in the cook, a milling technique, a role on the production floor, an ingredient, or a fermentation choice.Spanish for "cultivated"; the counterpart to silvestre on mezcal labels, denoting clonal hijuelo monoculture, the default for commercial Agave tequilana and espadín, with the same NOM-070 labeling gap running in reverse.
Style termA style term: the way a finished bottle is categorized or presented to the drinker. An aging tier, a labeling category, a serving ritual, or a garnish that travels with the spirit.A pulque blended with a fruit, herb, or vegetable (piña, fresa, apio, avena, nuez, guayaba). The form most younger CDMX drinkers consume pulque in; subject of the purist-vs-revival debate.
Production termA production term: a word used in the process of making the spirit. A step in the cook, a milling technique, a role on the production floor, an ingredient, or a fermentation choice.An industrial countercurrent extraction column that leaches sugars from raw, uncooked shredded agave using hot water and sometimes dilute sulfuric acid; the operative term in the additive-free and authenticity debates.
Style termA style term: the way a finished bottle is categorized or presented to the drinker. An aging tier, a labeling category, a serving ritual, or a garnish that travels with the spirit.Spanish assemblage. A mezcal blended from two or more agave species, distinguished from single-species releases like espadín-only or tobalá-only. Common practice in Oaxaca.
Style termA style term: the way a finished bottle is categorized or presented to the drinker. An aging tier, a labeling category, a serving ritual, or a garnish that travels with the spirit.Tequila or mezcal aged more than three years in oak barrels of no more than 600 litres. The heaviest oak tier, introduced for tequila in a 2006 revision of NOM-006.
Apparatus termAn apparatus term: a physical piece of equipment or vessel used to make, sample, or drink the spirit. A still, an oven, a fermentation tank, a sampling tool, or a traditional glass.The hollow-log, indirect-condensation still architecture brought to the Pacific coast of Mexico via the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade between 1565 and 1815, and the technological lineage behind raicilla, tuxca, vino de cocos, and several western mezcal traditions.
Production termA production term: a word used in the process of making the spirit. A step in the cook, a milling technique, a role on the production floor, an ingredient, or a fermentation choice.A clonal basal offshoot of an agave, literally "little child"; the unit of clonal propagation in tequila and in part of the mezcal industry.
Production termA production term: a word used in the process of making the spirit. A step in the cook, a milling technique, a role on the production floor, an ingredient, or a fermentation choice.The underground earthen pit oven (also called palenque-style pit); the signature mezcal cooking method and the chemical source of the spirit's smoke.
Apparatus termAn apparatus term: a physical piece of equipment or vessel used to make, sample, or drink the spirit. A still, an oven, a fermentation tank, a sampling tool, or a traditional glass.A half-gourd cup carved from the dried fruit of the cuastecomate tree; the most culturally specific mezcal-tasting vessel in Oaxaca.
Production termA production term: a word used in the process of making the spirit. A step in the cook, a milling technique, a role on the production floor, an ingredient, or a fermentation choice.The agave harvester who strips the leaves and extracts the piña using a long-handled coa; the role is dangerous, deeply physical, and largely hereditary.
Style termA style term: the way a finished bottle is categorized or presented to the drinker. An aging tier, a labeling category, a serving ritual, or a garnish that travels with the spirit."Young." In tequila, a blend of blanco with a small amount of aged tequila per NOM-006-SCFI-2012. In mezcal, a synonym for unaged spirit per NOM-070-SCFI-2016.
Style termA style term: the way a finished bottle is categorized or presented to the drinker. An aging tier, a labeling category, a serving ritual, or a garnish that travels with the spirit.The most traditional mezcal tier per NOM-070-SCFI-2016. Clay-pot stills only, hand or mallet milling only (no tahona), no mechanical anything. The highest editorial-discipline tier.
Style termA style term: the way a finished bottle is categorized or presented to the drinker. An aging tier, a labeling category, a serving ritual, or a garnish that travels with the spirit.The middle production tier under NOM-070-SCFI-2016. Permits more equipment than Ancestral (stainless ferment, copper stills, mechanical shredders) but still bars the diffuser and column. The largest tier by volume.
Style termA style term: the way a finished bottle is categorized or presented to the drinker. An aging tier, a labeling category, a serving ritual, or a garnish that travels with the spirit.A tequila of at least 51 percent blue agave sugars plus up to 49 percent "other sugars" (usually cane). Legally tequila, generally inferior in the contemporary premium market; the 1970s industrial-export tequila category.
Production termA production term: a word used in the process of making the spirit. A step in the cook, a milling technique, a role on the production floor, an ingredient, or a fermentation choice.The fermented wort; the liquid stage in which yeast and bacteria convert agave sugars to alcohol before distillation.
Apparatus termAn apparatus term: a physical piece of equipment or vessel used to make, sample, or drink the spirit. A still, an oven, a fermentation tank, a sampling tool, or a traditional glass.The clay-pot still; the ancestral Oaxacan mezcal still architecture and the only still permitted for Mezcal Ancestral under NOM-070.
Production termA production term: a word used in the process of making the spirit. A step in the cook, a milling technique, a role on the production floor, an ingredient, or a fermentation choice.A ceremonial style of mezcal where a piece of meat (traditionally raw chicken or turkey breast), plus seasonal fruits, nuts, and spices, is suspended in the still during the final distillation pass.
Production termA production term: a word used in the process of making the spirit. A step in the cook, a milling technique, a role on the production floor, an ingredient, or a fermentation choice.The "pearling" bead pattern of distilled spirit when poured into a jícara; the maestro mezcalero reads it to assess proof and quality without a hydrometer.
Production termA production term: a word used in the process of making the spirit. A step in the cook, a milling technique, a role on the production floor, an ingredient, or a fermentation choice.The cooked or uncooked heart of an agave plant after the leaves are stripped; the dense, sugar-rich stem that is the raw material of every agave spirit.
Production termA production term: a word used in the process of making the spirit. A step in the cook, a milling technique, a role on the production floor, an ingredient, or a fermentation choice.The agave's flowering stalk; a single hollow column 5 to 12 meters tall that emerges in weeks and is the plant's once-in-a-lifetime reproductive event before monocarpic death.
Style termA style term: the way a finished bottle is categorized or presented to the drinker. An aging tier, a labeling category, a serving ritual, or a garnish that travels with the spirit."Rested." Tequila or mezcal aged between two and twelve months in oak barrels of no more than 600 litres. The tier where oak begins to integrate without dominating the agave.
Style termA style term: the way a finished bottle is categorized or presented to the drinker. An aging tier, a labeling category, a serving ritual, or a garnish that travels with the spirit.Worm salt: ground dried Comadia redtenbacheri moth larva (not actually a worm) mixed with toasted chile and coarse salt. Served alongside mezcal as palate punctuation, not as a chaser.
Style termA style term: the way a finished bottle is categorized or presented to the drinker. An aging tier, a labeling category, a serving ritual, or a garnish that travels with the spirit.Health. The standard Mexican toast given on the first pour. Eye contact, then drink. The most basic etiquette gesture across all Mexican drinking contexts.
Style termA style term: the way a finished bottle is categorized or presented to the drinker. An aging tier, a labeling category, a serving ritual, or a garnish that travels with the spirit.The classical Lake Chapala tequila chaser. Seville bitter orange, pomegranate, lime, powdered chile, salt; red color from pomegranate and chile, NOT from tomato. The tomato version is a mid-20th-century US adaptation.
Production termA production term: a word used in the process of making the spirit. A step in the cook, a milling technique, a role on the production floor, an ingredient, or a fermentation choice.Spanish for "wild"; a mezcal label term for agaves harvested from wild populations, sitting on a four-tier spectrum that NOM-070 declines to legally define.
Apparatus termAn apparatus term: a physical piece of equipment or vessel used to make, sample, or drink the spirit. A still, an oven, a fermentation tank, a sampling tool, or a traditional glass.A large stone wheel, typically volcanic basalt or limestone two to three meters across, used to crush cooked agave in a circular pit; historically pulled by mule, sometimes motorized today.
Apparatus termAn apparatus term: a physical piece of equipment or vessel used to make, sample, or drink the spirit. A still, an oven, a fermentation tank, a sampling tool, or a traditional glass.The fermentation room or vat at a pulque hacienda; the working microbial heart of the operation, which carries its resident yeast and bacterial community across batches.
Production termA production term: a word used in the process of making the spirit. A step in the cook, a milling technique, a role on the production floor, an ingredient, or a fermentation choice.The aguamiel harvester at a pulque hacienda; uses a long gourd called the acocote to draw sap from a tapped maguey twice daily, dawn and dusk.
Apparatus termAn apparatus term: a physical piece of equipment or vessel used to make, sample, or drink the spirit. A still, an oven, a fermentation tank, a sampling tool, or a traditional glass.A small ribbed votive-candle glass repurposed as a mezcal vessel in the mid-20th century; the iconic glass of Oaxacan mezcalerías.