Claridad Bicuishe Capón Mezcal

Bicuishe is a wild Agave karwinskii — the tall, thin-trunked family that also gives madrecuishe and cuishe — with a bright, high-toned, almost falsetto character, and Onofre Ortíz Ortíz's capón harvest gives it something it rarely has: weight. Capón means cutting the agave's reproductive stalk at maturity and leaving the plant in the field for months more, so the sugars flow back into the heart. The fifth-generation mezcalero of Bramaderos, Miahuatlán, Oaxaca — son of the legendary Don Beto — used 180 piñas of eight-year bicuishe, 5,000 kilos, harvested capón-style, rested five days, cooked three days in an oak-fired conical stone oven, rested three more, milled with axe, machete, and grinder, fermented five days in cypress tinas with ambient yeast and well water, and double-distilled in an alembic copper pot still, yielding 540 liters at 48% ABV in September 2022. Claridad — the producer-first brand Francisca D'Acosta and Ofer Levy built as an answer to mezcal's rabbit brands — labels every batch. Skurnik found aromas of oxidizing red apple, sweet potato, sweet pea, and burnt sugar, then bright herbs alongside Bosc pear, candy corn, and stewed plum: delicate yet dense, a pronounced balance of sweet, heavy texture against the bright profile of the species. Expect a karwinskii that sings and sits down at the same time. Honest note: a single-agave sipper at a serious price, and one of only 540 liters. Neat, in a copita, slowly.

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