Raicilla is a spirit made from agaves distilled in remote areas only in Jalisco state. Raicilla is a mezcal – but not on the label, due to Mexican regulations. There are at least eight kinds of agave, all of them wild, some with several local varieties. Raicilla’s main agaves are the large agave Maximiliana (sometimes called lechugilla), several wild varieties of angustifolia (such as chico aguilar), rhodacantha (local varieties of the “dobadaan” used in Oaxaca), and inaequidens, called bruto because its sap irritates the human skin (also used to make mezcal in Michoacan). Raicilla goes way back in time; its distillation was introduced in the 1600s from the Spanish colonies in the Philippines, which resulted in the common use of the primitive Filipino double-chamber clay still.