Mezcal, Five Generations in Matatlan...

Don Isaac recounts awaking at 4 am, then walking from his village of Matatlán, with his mule, to Oaxaca, arriving some 14 or 15 hours later … just to buy a large cántaro, the traditional clay vessel then used for making and transporting mezcal (also referred to as mescal). Often he would stop en route, at Santa María el Tule, for a drink of refreshing tejate before carrying on. Quenching his thirst, putting his feet up for a short while, and chatting with his favorite tejatero, made the arduous journey accepted custom, just part of the job.

Eighty-nine-year-old Isaac Jiménez Arrazola has been producing mezcal in Matatlán all his life, just like his father and grandfather before him, his sons Enrique and Octavio, and now his grandchildren. The town has a colorful history and pride in being one of the oldest colonial settlements in the country, founded in 1525, only a few years after Cortés arrived in Mexico. But for literally hundreds of years the crowning glory of Matatlán has been its status as world capital for the production of mezcal. In fact by 1980 this dusty one-horse-town had about 360 palenques [the facility where the agave plant (maguey) is processed until mezcal slowly drips out of the still] each producing about 2,800 liters monthly.

The family patriarch recalls that using clay for transporting had its definite downside, being fragile and at times dangerous. So when the opportunity arose to transport in latas de mantequa (large tins in which lard was then sold), he seized the opportunity. And then with the arrival of larger plastic containers, a further change occurred. But by about 1943, with the Pan-American highway by then almost arriving at Oaxaca, imported oak barrels began to appear. Don Isaac saw a chance to transport even larger quantities.