Bicuixe Capón 2019 | Cándido García Cruz | Summer 2020 Release | BCXCAN1905 | 264 Bottles
Available through Pueblo de Sabor in CA
The story behind the sourcing of agave used in this 140L batch, as told to us, is both a bit humorous and representative of some of the different ways in which people work together in order to make agave spirits. Normally, Cándido uses nothing but home-grown or wild-harvested from his family’s lands, but on this occasion the wild Bicuixe came from the neighboring community of Lachigüizo. A friend and relative of his needed some cash and offered up around 100 capón agaves, grown in rocky and white casjaco soil. When Cándido arrived to pick up the piñas, he found his friend elated by his arrival, having just spend a nearly sleepless night guarding his small stockpile of harvested maguey, machete in hand. Cándido and his son, Heriberto, rested the agaves for another two days before roasting them with mesquite wood for a total of eight days. After the cooked maguey was unearthed, it was rested for eight days before being processed by machete and a shredder. The fibers were sufficient to fill two sabino wood tanks, and dry-fermented for 24 hours before the addition of about 600L of well water in each tank. Under the steady warm temperatures of April 2019, the guarape and fibers naturally fermented for eight days before distillation. As with most of his productions, Cándido smithed the different cuts adjusting alcohol levels with select sections of the second round of distillation. Most of Cándido’s Bicuixe comes from his iron-rich red earthen lands, so the opportunity to compare the flavors with this white-earth, tierra blanca cascajo grown maguey provides playful insight to understanding the flavors of Miahuatlán.