Mezcal has soared in popularity in the US, and major companies are swooping in to repackage and resell it.
It’s left smaller Mexican producers with a fraction of the profits.
Fearful that regulations are putting traditional distilling methods at risk, some have left the industry, now calling their product “distilled agave.”
The US market for mezcal overtook Mexico’s in 2019.
But as demand soars stateside, small Mexican mezcal producers aren’t making the big bucks. While Mexican regulations do require mezcal to be made in Mexico, that hasn’t stopped large, international companies from scooping up mezcal supplies, repackaging them, and reselling them for huge profits abroad. And the only organization that can stand in the way, the mezcal certifying agency COMERCAM, has faced claims of favoritism of large companies over smaller, traditional ones.
This has left some century-old mezcal brands frustrated and fearful that their ancestral ways of making mezcal are at risk. Now, there’s a growing trend of brands leaving the certified industry and choosing to call their brands “distilled agave” instead of mezcal.
We head to Oaxaca, Mexico, to see how producers make the liquor by hand.