Agave

This small batch of Tobala y Cuixe was made by “Tio” Pedro Pascual Hernandez and his nephew, Eduardo “Lalo” Barriga, in their hometown of Santa Catarina Minas, Oaxaca. The pair worked together to co-roast, co-ferment, and co-distil two different species of agave: wild-harvested Tobala (Agave potatorum) & cultivated Cuixe (Agave rhodacantha), both of them harvested in nearby Santo Domingo Jalleza. After the agaves were cooked together in an underground oven with guamuche firewood, they were allowed to rest for eight days. Lalo, along with neighbors and friends, used machetes to cut up the cooked agave, then feed it through a small mechanical shredder that covered the cooked agave pieces into a fermentable mash. That mash was allowed to dry ferment for a couple of days in pine tanks, before well-water was eventually added. Fermentation then continued for another week. Lalo, with the help of neighbors and friends, then proceeded to double-distill the fermented mash in a set of four clay-pot stills at his uncles’ palenque, “La Esperanza.”

Proofed with heads, heart and tails by Lalo. Distilled in August 2023 and rested in glass demijohns for six weeks prior to bottling.

5 Sentidos Jabali-Tobala is an ensamble of wild maguey Jabali and wild maguey Tobala from the Sierra Norte. The first special bottling from 5 Sentidos in the United States was this ensamble and it was only released in the city of Chicago (EN01 – 60 liters). Other batches are available at Oaxaca’s El Destilado. The same style of ensamble was also the third special release from 5 Sentidos (EN03 – 110 liters). The maguey Jabali and Tobala are cooked together in an underground horno, milled by hand with axes and mallets, fermented with Tepehuaje for four days, and double distilled in small clay pots. The clay pot still used to make this mezcal is artistically rendered on the front label of the bottle.