Refugio Calzada Hernandez. Tetitlan de la Lima, Chilapa de Alvarez, Gro.
Don Cuco, as he’s known to friends, was the president of a local association of mezcaleros and magueyeros (agave farmers) for many years, and has been a leading force behind popular agave and tree reforestation efforts that have helped make agave more plentiful today than in his youth.
Though he works almost exclusively with maguey papalote, Don Cuco’s bodega is home to a diverse collection joven, capón and glass aged spirits, as well as a few special batches macerated with chumilin (Atizies taxcoensis), a local stink bug considered a seasonal delicacy.
The agaves used for this batch were capóned in 2018, two years before the plants were harvested. The capón process (cutting the quiote but leaving the agave in the field), increases the complexity of flavors in the final products, and are generally considered a mark of quality.
