Mezcal| 48.1% ABV

Commercial Description:

We are excited to announce that we are collaborating with another familia mezcalera!
Eleuterio “To Tello” Perez Ramos of El Nanche, Oaxaca, has over five decades of experience distilling. He works closely with his son Eduardo “Lalo” Cortes Perez. To Tello is remarkably selective when it comes to harvesting agave, exclusively using mature maguey that is almost always “quiotudo,” a regional parlance to describe what are essentially capn agaves.

The family works mostly with Espadin, Cuishe (in nearby villages the same agave is referred as Bicuixe), and Madrecuixe, and occasionally distill small batches of wild varieties. While nearly all of the surrounding mezcaleros have switched to milling mechanically or with a tahona, To Tello insists on chopping the roasted agave with a machete and mashing it with large wooden hammers. Tello believes this manual process, which leads to friends, family and neighbors meeting up to mash together makes his palenque a unique place for a social ritual; he also believes that mechanical shredding could impart undesired flavors.

Tio Tello’s palenque is one of the smallest we have encountered in the region: it consists of one oven, a small mashing area, three old sabino cypress “bancos” for open-air fermentation, and a single copper still. To Tello adjusts his final spirit with heads, hearts and xixe.