El Jolgorio Pechuga Navidena Mezcal (750 ml)

Created by the Cortés family, considered by many to be mezcal royalty, El Jolgorio is widely acknowledged as one of the finest collections of agave spirits available. 

All around the mountains and valleys of Oaxaca, Rolando Cortés and his family collaborate with like-minded maestro mezcaleros who approach their work with a shared philosophy of respect for land and tradition. From batch to batch, an individual variety of agave will generally be sourced from different mezcaleros, in different regions, reducing the pressure put upon any one community’s agave population and spreading the financial benefits among families all over Oaxaca – but the unmatched quality of El Jolgorio mezcales remains the same.

Tasting Notes: 

“Pechuga” translates literally to breast, but it implies heart and soul as well. Pechuga mezcal is a spirit distilled for celebrations and gatherings, from weddings to funerals, from welcoming spring fertility to honoring the Day of the Dead.

To distill pechuga, there is a sacrificial component, driven by seasonal harvest. On a second or third distillation run, mezcaleros will incorporate fruits, spices and an animal protein, with recipes unique to local tradition; most commonly the protein will be fowl, the raw breast of a chicken or wild turkey.

El Jolgorio Pechuga is a benchmark example. Produced exclusively at the Casa Cortés palenque in Santiago Matatlán, the mezcal is distilled twice using copper pot stills, adding pineapples, limes, oranges, plantains, apples, pears and the raw breast of a guajolote – a creole turkey rooster of the region – to the second distillation.