Cazcanes Nuestras Raíces Still Strength Blanco Tequila

Nuestras Raíces, 'Our Roots', is Cazcanes stepping outside the tequila rulebook. It is made not at the brand's NOM 1614 home in Amatitán but at the artisanal palenque of Humberto Alvarado, a third-generation maestro destilador working in the jungle hills of Jalisco, and because his operation sits outside CRT certification, the label reads destilado de agave rather than tequila, even though it is 100% blue Weber agave. The method is as rustic as it sounds. Agave is cooked slowly in a wood-fired autoclave, chopped by hand, and shredded with a repurposed 1970s Chevy inline-six engine. Fermentation is open-air and wild, using only native yeast, and distillation runs through a wood-fired still into stainless steel with copper coils, with water drawn from a spring about 100 meters from the still. It is bottled unfiltered and undiluted at 47% ABV, with no additives of any kind. Cazcanes calls it jungle juice, a raw, unfiltered expression of agave in its wildest form. Maxim's tasting found intense roasted agave, green pepper and fresh herb brightness, earthy minerality, faint smoke and a dry, peppery, citrus-peel finish. Production is limited to what one small palenque can make, so each edition is a one-time run.

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