Neta Astor Batch Tepextate Mezcal - 2021

Let's start with the easy part - we know it is early on but this may very well be the best thing you taste all year, by far. The New York batch for last year was our favorite and we didn't think it could be topped until we got a chance to select our own. Now, the important details. Made by Gilberto Aquino Garcia in Logoche, Miahuatlán, part of the younger new generation of palenqueros, he utilized 30 piñas of this wild agave that had grown with partial capon on his wife's family land nearby at nearly 2,000ft elevation. The agaves were cooked for nearly two weeks with local mesquite and tepehiaje wood and dry fermented with wild yeasts in Montezuma cypress sabino wood. Double distilled to proof in direct fire copper pots, the total yield of the batch was 125 liters. If you haven't already caught on, Neta is bottling some of the greatest mezcals you could get your hands on at the moment. This batch takes the irresistible concentrated sweet herbaceous character of Tepextate to new heights. Very limited.