The cultivation of agave is laborious and time consuming, and the agricultural practices used seem, from the outside, decidedly old-world--quaint, even. So too is the distillation process that's touted on bottles and in marketing literature, where masters toil over ancient pot stills, producing the spirit largely through intuition. These are great stories, but beneath them is an even more exciting tale--that of a spirit that's shed the stigma of being cheap firewater to become highly respected alongside the world's most revered liquors.

- Excerpt from Cocktail Codex by Death & Co.

In recent years, mezcal has transfixed spirit and cocktail lovers because of its extremely distinctive flavor and the romance of its heritage as a peasant spirits created by artisan producers following many generations of traditions. Indeed, many spirit enthusiasts have all but abandoned tequila for mezcal because, unlike tequila, it is still a small-scale artisanal product. Mezcals are most frequently bottled unaged (blanco or joven - a term meaning young), though there are a handful of producers who age mezcal in oak barrels.

- Excerpt from Cocktail Codex by Death & Co.

Bacanora and Raicilla are made in Mexico from agave using very similar production practices to mezcal, with each revealing their own terroir. But across the world, there is a new wave expanding the agave category. With their own unique production techniques, rather than simply trying to imitate Mexican traditions, we are beginning to see how producers from various agave growing regions are able to express terroir through agave.