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Counter Intuitive
LET THE SPIRIT BE YOUR GUIDE
Author: Christine Sismondo Illustrator: Tom Ralston
The never-ending hunt for the
next big thing in booze can take
you to some pretty unlikely places.
But my search for raicilla, an
unaged agave spirit distilled and
enjoyed on the Pacific coast of
Mexico for some five centuries,
certainly led me to some of the
most unusual. After striking out at
a cocktail bar and a liquor store in
downtown Puerto Vallarta, I was
offered a shot, out of the blue, at
a chocolate shop. Then at a taco
stand, a jewelry store and, finally,
at an art gallery.
Almost every business in
the city—from timeshares to
stores full of talavera tiles—has
a bottle of raicilla (a.k.a. Mexican
Moonshine) tucked under the
counter somewhere. Few happy
transactions end without the offer
of a shot of the local hooch. As
they say in Puerto Vallarta, Arriba,
abajo, al centro, pa’dentro!—(up,
down, to the middle and down the
hatch), raising their glasses before
drinking it back. It’s a super-
friendly town.
Ten years ago, this was
pretty much the only way to taste
raicilla—a generally sweet, fruity
and soft spirit with a touch of hot
roughness. Now, though, raicilla
cocktails are starting to appear in
craft cocktail bars in Los Angeles,
Austin and New York where they
celebrate a spirit that’s even
more rustic and esoteric than
mezcal. Unlike tequila, which is
increasingly super-smooth and
consistent in terms of flavour
profile, both mezcal and raicilla
are for more adventurous drinkers
who want to taste something new
every single time—from intense
smoke-and-herbal profiles to
fruity flavours that almost border
on bubble-gum.
To be perfectly clear here,
any spirit made from an agave
plant including both tequila and
raicilla is in the mezcal family.
The difference is regional (like Champagne versus sparkling wine) but, generally speaking, mezcal and
raicilla are more likely to be made with wild agave and be produced in
more rustic facilities. Instead of copper columns, for example, you might
encounter wooden, clay or ceramic stills. Around Puerto Vallarta, you can
visit raicilla facilities in El Tuito (to the south) or up in the mountains west
of the city, in San Sebastian or Mascota. Tours can be arranged by just
about anyone you meet at a taco stand or art gallery. I discovered one at
the ChocoMuseo near Puerto Vallarta’s Malecón when our guide, Eduardo
Nava, offered us a swig of raicilla as we waited for the chocolate to set
after our bean-to-bar workshop.
“So, it’s almost people making it at their house, because agave is
wildly growing out there,” said Eduardo Nava, a chocolate guru, who
also offers raicilla experiences. “So everybody has it and they’ll sell it to
you in coke bottles, not like this (gesturing to the raicilla bottle under
the counter). Like, this is fancy; this is an actual brand. There are no
companies, just people who make things and sell them to you in regular
water bottles or coke bottles. Very cheap.”
Nava’s tours take visitors to El Tuito, where, in addition to the
moonshiners with plastic bottles, you can visit the Hacienda El Divisadero,
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Between that and the love raicilla is getting
in tequila and mezcal bars across the country,
it does seem inevitable that the spirit is about
to make the jump—from moonshine bought in
plastic bottles to 'it spirit'."
a plantation and distillery that maintains age-old traditions, like using
diverse indigenous agave plants and keeping the processing down to a
minimum. It’s still rustic, but it’s definitely a level up from the backwoods
raicilla stills. For one thing, the spirit is sold in actual glass bottles.
Hacienda El Divisadero is even sold, chilled, in an elegant tulip glass,
with orange slices and worm salt, at Tintoque, a proper tasting menu
restaurant in Marina Vallarta that specializes in elevated west coast
Mexican cuisine. It also appears—along with three other expressions—
at Café Des Artistes, the seminal French restaurant in the city’s gallery
district that set the bar for fine dining in the city nearly 30 years ago.
Between that and the love raicilla is getting in tequila and mezcal
bars across the country, it does seem inevitable that the spirit is about to
make the jump—from moonshine bought in plastic bottles to “it spirit.”
And, since small, artisanal production methods guarantee it will always
be scarce, prices will surely rise.
“It’s like mezcal,” says Nava. “Mezcal was super cheap. It was for
poor people. And now it’s the most expensive liquor, even in Mexico. It’s
crazy. To me, that was the craziest thing. People couldn’t get rid of it.
And now it’s fancy and people like it and people enjoy it. It’s funny how
things change.”
Nevertheless, no matter how big it gets, odds are you’ll still be able
to find bottles of perfectly tasty raicillas in just about every shop in
Puerto Vallarta. Except, of course, the liquor store.
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