All COMUNIDAD spirits are either artisanal or ancestral. The processes are apparently simple, but consist of many, many small details, each detail demanding skilled attention. Such attention to detail is natural when everything is done by hand.
Bringing down agaves from a mountain planting.
Roasting in a pit oven. Rocks are piled on top of the live fire to keep from scorching the agaves.
Roasting takes 3 days. The agaves are uncovered, and when cool are moved to where they will be cut into smaller pieces for milling.
Using a broad-axe to cut up roasted agaves.
Crushing roasted agaves by rotating stone mill
Distillers using ancestral methods crush with wooden mallets. It takes three men 8 hours to fill a fermentation tank
Fermentation with native yeasts in small clay pots at Don Amado’s tiny destilería.
Forked stick and river rock to hold down the top of a still at Santa Ana del Rio. This is so symbolic of how close distillers are to their work.
The river is diverted upstream to bring in cooling water for the still’s water-bath cooling/condenser
Hector picking up a batch of mezcal in San Juan del Rio