Yuu Baal Joven Tepeztate Mezcal

Tepeztate is the cliff agave — Agave marmorata, which grows wild on rocky hillsides and takes twenty to twenty-five years to mature — and Yuu Baal's is one of the few ways to taste two decades of growth at a value price. Yuu Baal is a social enterprise, a group of producers in San Juan del Río, San Luis del Río, Tlacolula, and Miahuatlán, Oaxaca, whose mission is to highlight native Oaxacan mezcal traditions with every step — planting, cutting, distilling — done by hand. Tepeztate is wild-harvested, roasted in a conical stone-lined pit, crushed by tahona, fermented with wild yeast in pine vats, and double-distilled in copper, bottled at 48% ABV; every bottle is numbered by lot. Tepeztate is famous for its green, vegetal, faintly floral character: expect a nose of green chile, tropical fruit, wet stone, and white flowers over a whisper of smoke, opening into a bright, spicy, herbal palate with honeyed fruit and a long, peppery, mineral finish. Enthusiasts call Yuu Baal hit or miss across the range and the wild agaves the hits — Mezcal Reviews' tasters found the brand's karwinskii bottles earthy, mineral, and unique. Honest note: wild tepeztate is scarce, and at this price it's the entry to an agave that usually costs twice as much. Neat, in a copita, slowly, beside the espadín to taste the difference two decades make. The cliff agave, at a working price.

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