Coyote silvestre | January 2025 | Manuel Aquino García | COYMAQ2501 | Fall 2025 release | 36 bottles | The Alchemist Geneva + Bottles Up!
COYMAQ2501 | COYOTE SILVESTRE | MANUEL AQUINO GARCÍA | JANUARY 2025 | 46% ALC | 36 BOTTLES | ALCHEMIST GENEVA + BOTTLES UP!
The agave used for this tiny production is a local hybrid colloquially known as Coyote, recently classified as Agave lyobaa. It is the offspring of natural cross-pollination between Tobalá-type plants and larger varieties of Agave karwinskii (often Madrecuixe in much of Miahuatlán), which cohabitate the transitional zones between the Sierra and the Valle of Oaxaca. In the wild, these agaves are extremely rare, making their use in mezcal production both uncommon and highly coveted.
Until their cultivated Coyote agaves reach maturity, Manuel and his wife, Atanasia, produce just one or two small batches each year using wild plants. This 35-liter batch, distilled in January 2025, was made from twenty capón agaves harvested from two separate parcels in different villages of Miahuatlán. Half were collected on his in-laws’ land in Buenavista from a black-earth (tierra negra) hillside, and the other half came from a rocky white-soil (tierra blanca) parcel in neighboring San Luis Amatlán. This rare and limited production was bottled exclusively for our friends at Alchemist in Geneva, IL, and Bottles Up! in Chicago.
§ Maguey(es): Coyote (Agave lyobaa)
§ Provenance of the maguey: wild maguey from San Luis Amatlán and family land in nearby Buenavista
§ Producer: Manuel Aquino García
§ Region: Logoche, Miahuatlán
§ Soil type: white and rocky tierra blanca in San Luis Amatlán and black tierra negra in Buenavista
§ Rest time after harvest: six days
§ Oven: Conical earthen pit; seven days with mesquite wood
§ Rest time after oven: five days
§ Maceration: Machete and shredder
§ Fermentation: Native yeasts; 1200L Montezuma cypress sabino wood tanks
§ Dry fermentation time: 48 hours
§ Wet fermentation time: four days
§ Distillation: 2x in copper pot stills
§ Final composition: Heads, hearts, and tails
§ Batch size: 35 liters
§ Date of distillation: January 2025
§ ABV: 45%