HISTORY At a glance

The word mezcal means “cooked maguey” in the Nahuatl language, historians say. It was the stuff of bootleggers until 1795, when Jose Cuervo got a permit to make “mezcal de Tequila,” or “mezcal from Tequila,” the municipality of Tequila in Jalisco state.

In other words, tequila is and was the locally produced mezcal, even if modern-day tequila manufacturers would like the drinking public to forget its humble origins. But diversity is mezcal’s strength: While tequila must be made from blue agave, mezcal can be distilled from dozens of species. And just as wines vary by grape variety and geography, mezcal changes from village to village and from one maguey to the next.

Production techniques vary, too, but traditional mezcal makers, unlike their steam-cooking counterparts in tequila country, roast mature maguey over wood. That’s what gives true mezcal its unmistakable smoky flavor.

At Real Minero in tiny Santa Catarina Minas, a former mining town about an hour outside Oaxaca City, the Angeles family has been making mezcal the old-fashioned way for at least five generations. Its specialty mescals include the sweet arruqueno and wild tobala species, which take longer to mature than more common species.

A visit to the small Real Minero plant, nestled in the foothills of the southern Sierra Madre mountains, is a walk back in time. The smell of roasted maguey rises from giant outdoor pits and mezcal slowly drips out of tiny wood-fired stills into earthen pots.