Mezcal, Jabali, Rey Campero

• Mezcal produced in Candelaria Yegolé, Zoquitlán, Oaxaca • Maestro Mezcalero Vicente Sánchez Parada • Made from 100% Jabalí (Agave convallis) • Cooked in a traditional earthen pit oven • Milled using a traditional stone tahona  • Open-air, spontaneously fermented in pine and cypress vats (tinas) using river water • Distilled twice using a traditional wood-fired copper pot still with hybrid refrescadera condenser • Rey Campero’s Jabalí exhibits a flamboyant and sweaty nose before breaking into orange zest and slate on the palate; chalk, tropical fruit, and rawhide push and pull on the dynamic finish • 49% ABV (ABV may vary batch to batch) The Sánchez Parada family is well known for their innovations in the challenging distillation of the Jabalí variety. Before their work, the accepted wisdom was that Jabalí—which tends to foam during distillation and can literally blow up the still—could not be made in batches large enough for commercial release. Using only the implements at hand and a creative new approach, Rey Campero managed to bypass this issue, and subsequently, this new method for distilling Jabalí has spread like wildfire throughout Oaxaca’s mezcalero community.