Madrecuixe capón | May 2014 | Ranulfo García Pacheco | MDXRAN1405 | Fall 2025 release | 258 bottles | PM Spirits National release
MDXRAN1405 | MADRECUIXE CAPÓN | RANULFO GARCÍA PACHECO | MAY 2014 | 48.7% | 258 BOTTLES | PM SPIRITS
Maestro Ranulfo García Pacheco stepped back from day-to-day production in 2019, taking on a supervisory role at the family’s palenque while his sons, Víctor and Ranulfo Jr., assumed the helm. This special batch was distilled in May 2014 from one- and two-year capón Madrecuixe agaves grown on the family’s red and white, rocky ranch land in El Sauz, Miahuatlán. For the García family, certain older productions have been held in reserve as a kind of savings—released only on rare occasions—making this bottling particularly special.
Just a few miles southeast of Logoche, the García family works in a tradition unique to their village, using a refrescadera with their copper pot stills. This stainless-steel cylinder, placed around the still’s cap and filled with cold water, allows for high-proof spirits to be produced in a single distillation. As vapors rise from the boiling guarape and fibers below, the refrescadera condenses them, sending the liquid back into the pot to be reheated before it passes through the copper coil and is collected. The family’s recipe calls for filling the refrescadera four times per run, carefully selecting multiple cuts—known as posturas—and separating the perla-rich cordón from the lower-proof tails (shishe or cola). The shishe is then folded into the next postura of fermented maguey, continuing the cycle.
Distilling with a refrescadera is an old and increasingly rare technique, but in the García hands, it yields a remarkably clean spirit brimming with robust flavor. Every sip speaks to Miahuatlán’s terruño. Ranulfo, a master of traditional methods, has refined his approach over decades, composing each batch entirely by sight, smell, and taste, using only a jícara and venencia.
§ Maguey(es): Madrecuixe capón (Agave karwinskii var.)
§ Provenance of the maguey: homegrown
§ Producer: Ranulfo García Pacheco
§ Region: El Saúz, Miahuatlán
§ Soil type: Both red and white soil, tierra roja y tierra blanca
§ Rest time after harvest: seven days
§ Oven: Conical earthen pit; ten days with mesquite wood
§ Rest time after oven: 10 days
§ Maceration: Ox-drawn stone mill
§ Fermentation: Native yeasts; two 1200L Montezuma cypress sabino wood tanks
§ Dry fermentation time: 24 hours
§ Wet fermentation time: twelve days
§ Distillation: 1x in copper pot stills with a refrescadera
§ Final composition: select cuts of cordón
§ Batch size: 210 liters
§ Date of distillation: May 2014
§ ABV: 48.6%