Tepextate 2019 | Florencio García Vásquez | Summer 2020 Release | TPXFLR1911 | 60 Bottles
Tepextate is a type of Agave marmorata that grows throughout many different regions of Oaxaca. The plant’s historical use in spirits was limited to remote and isolated regions of difficult terrain, where the production of mezcal was clandestine, and in situations where palenqueros did not have the land and resources to cultivate other varietals preferred for their higher yield. In the past, Tepextate was often used as medicine, with different desired properties derived from both the roots and the juices of its thick leaves.
It is one of the lowest-yielding varietals used in the production of agave spirits. Even ideal conditions require 30 to 90kg of cooked plant to yield just one liter of spirit. In comparison, a liter of Espadín, or other karwinskii varietals, will require somewhere between 6-10kg of roasted agave.
It is in arid environments with steep slopes and rugged, rocky and limestone-rich soils where the Tepextate maguey thrives. Amongst palenqueros, the plant is infamous for its extremely low sugar content and the difficulty involved in harvesting and transporting these plants from their preferred terrain of rocky hillside, steep ravines, and cliffs. These areas are most often inaccessible to trucks or even donkeys or mules and must be carried out by hand - leaving behind itchy rashes and blisters caused by its highly caustic juices. The name itself comes from “Tepetate”, a Hispanicized word originating from the Nahuatl tepetlatl, which refers to a geological horizon, a lime-rich but hardened and poor draining earth surface.
In Miahuatlán, Tepextate is sometimes found at lower elevations but is more prevalent in zones just below 1400 meters to just above 2000 meters above sea level. It is often found growing alongside various aromatic herbs and plants, such as verbena, copal trees, and wild chiles.
To craft these 50 liters of pure Tepextate, Florencio, harvested a total of 16 quiotudo and en guía ripe, wild-growing Tepextate plants from the steep slopes of his rocky and red-earth cascajudo lands in October 2019. Unlike other agaves, the Tepextate needs to be processed fairly quickly after it is cooked, and in this case, begun 24 hours after being unearthed from the mesquite wood-fired oven. Florencio dry fermented approximately 630kg for two days before adding a nearly equal portion of water from a riverside well. Quickly fermenting for another four days, the distillation of the guarape was finished on November 2, Dia de Muertos. Florencio made his final cut on the low side of things, right around 24% Alc. by Vol., and composed the 50 liters with the selected sections of the twice distilled spirit. Only available in California, this Tepextate is a definitive representation of Logoche and Miahuatlán.