NETA - Destilado de Agave

We first met Niki Nakazawa during harvest 2018 at Lucy Margaux (Adelaide Hills - Australia), who at the time had just wrapped-up consulting on the mezcal program for the Noma pop-up in Mexico. Her intentions were to get her hands dirty, making wine to better understand the similarities it has with the agave spirit – indeed both beverages draw clear parallels from their incredibly diverse worlds.

NETA (which translates as 'truth' or 'real deal') was established by co-founders Niki Nakazawa, Max Rosenstock and Yuskei Murayama. The trio works primarily with several small, family farmers/distillers from the community of Logoche, in the district of Miahuatlán, Oaxaca. Situated at the southern tip of the Central Valleys and the foot of the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains. An area that is well renowned for producing some of the finest agave spirits anywhere in Mexico – owing to the strong character of its people, its diverse landscapes, and the rich agricultural and culinary traditions that have been maintained throughout generations.

Don Tomás García Cruz

Espadín and its quiote – the stalk that shoots up when ready to reproduce

Cándido García Cruz

Celso García Cruz

Wild bicuixe

Ramón and Wilfrido García Sánchez

Miguel Osorio Gutierrez

Jabalín

Hermógenes Vásquez

Tepextate often grows alongside red copal trees

Paula Aquino Sánchez

It is interesting to note that in Oaxaca, the once cherished but slow growing Americana cultivars (like sierra negra) were displaced by the 'imported' espadín. A situation in which many magueyeros decided to abandon the slow maturing Americana types in favour of the high-yielding espadín, which would allow the magueyero to harvest nearly twice the amount of agave mass and profit during the same time period.

Over the last decade or so, the families in Logoche have focused their cultivation efforts on the revitalisation of rare agaves which are now being reproduced and cultivated from both seed and clone. The conservation of these often hyper-regional magueyes is important in the maintenance of healthy and diverse ecosystems, but for many, it is also an attempt to preserve the 'gusto histórico' of local flavours and savoir-faire – the 'historical taste' aka 'goût de terroir'!

Aniceto García

In early April 2022, Aniceto roasted a mix of 'en guía' and 'capón' agaves during a five-day cooking process. The magueyes rested for 12 days before the piñas were broken down with a machete and the traditional wooden mallet known as 'mazo'. Cooked to a caramelised perfection, the fibres and juices required a four-day dry fermentation before spring water was added for a six-day wet fermentation, with periodic inspection of aromas and flavours.

Aniceto follows a recipe for distillation using the same materials and techniques shown to him by his grandfather: a copper boiler pot and cap, fitted with a refrescadera cooling jacket. Unlike some other methods in the vicinity, Aniceto fills the refrescadera with cool water three times during each round of distillation, or postura. A select cut of high proof liquid from this first round, which he refers to as "shishe macizo", is separated and used to lower the final alcohol content of the heads and hearts cuts selected from the rectification in the second distillation. Around three liters of shishe macizo was separated and used to compose a total of 128ltr at 49%.