October 20, 2022 • 25 mins
In Aztec mythology the fertility goddess, Mayahuel, is the personification of the agave plant - the source of some of the most delicious spirits in Mexican culture. Eva and Maite talk about the ritual significance of pulque, a fermented drink, to the introduction of distillation techniques post-conquest and the first mezcal, all while drinking margaritas! Ivan Vasquez, owner of Madre Restaurant in Los Angeles, shares his thoughts on mezcal.
Learn more about Ivan Vasquez and Madre Restaurant here.
Click here to try Chica Salte!
Maite’s Margarita Recipe
Ingredients:
- 2 ounces of Tequila Blanco
- 1 ounce of lime juice
- ½ an ounce of triple sec
- ¼ ounce of agave
Instructions:
- Fill a cocktail shaker up halfway with ice.
- Add lime juice, tequila, triple sec and agave.
- Cover and shake until your fingers feel like they have frostbite.
- Serve in a glass with a salted rim. Enjoy!
Try Casa Del Sol.
Check out Rejon Tequila.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And Aztec mythology. The fertility goddess Maya is a personification
of the agave plant, the source of some of the
most delicious spirits in Mexican culture. Today's episode is about pulque, mescal,
and tequila. My name is Eva Longoria and I am
and welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores
(00:23):
our past and present through food. On every episode, we'll
talk about the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients,
and beverages. So make yourself at home. Today's episode is
a couple of my favorite topics. I mean mostly tequila
is my favorite topic, but we're also talking and mescal,
(00:45):
which is mu the moda as we say in Mexico.
It's very in right now. The first of all, this
word spirits I love. Oh yeah, I didn't even connect
that sit. I connected this like I was talking about
it and I was like, oh my god. Spirit. The
word spirit is so loaded. It's sort of the spirit
(01:08):
of the plant, you know. But so there's just so
much history and so much soul there. So just starting
with that that that alcohol, most alcohol is called spirit
the spirits, except if it's wine or beer. Yeah, exactly,
because they're they're fermented and bulk is fermented. But in
mythology mast tech mythology, ma Yah who is personified by
(01:31):
the agave plant, so the aga, and she's a goddess
of fertility. She's a goddess of of nourishment, and she's
this figure coming sometimes coming out of the agave or
sometimes holding the You know, that's the logo of my Tequila.
My will I never know this what that is so
funny that you put it in our episode. I thought
you put it from my Tequila because nobody she's never
(01:55):
been in a brand. And she's the goddess. She's known
as the goddess of tequila, obviously. And the myth is
that she had this forbidden love with the god of air,
and she created the agave plant to hide their love
from her grandmother, who did not want them to be together.
It was very Romeo and Juliet, and so they would
(02:15):
make love behind this big agave plant. And when the
grandmother found out, she's sent a bolt of lightning down
to the plant and that's when the agave cracked open,
the pina was cooked, and they found out a sweet
nectar was released from from their love. From their love,
their hidden forbidden love beautiful, and the and the leaves themselves,
(02:37):
the bank us that's supposed to be four hundred, which
represent the four children, her four children, and also the
four hundred ways of being intoxicated. There's only four ways
to be intoxicated. The The interesting thing is four is
not a literal number, but it represents infinity. So the
(03:00):
infinite numbers of being intoxicated are her, her leaves. And
this is you know, this is this is the goddess.
And it's about nourishment, and it's about fertili and it's
about love. Yeah, it is about love. Should we make it?
I'm gonna make I'm gonna make you a tequila. I'm
(03:20):
gonna make you a margarita. Okay, A mythologists tell me
a margharita is only limon a gave. Interesting with your tequila, right,
But if you want a blueberry blueberry margaret, it's blueberry
Limon gave. If you want a watermelon margarite, it's watermelon Limon.
You don't use simple sarah, I don't use I don't
use simple syrup. I don't use triple suck. I don't
(03:42):
use contro. I don't use a margarita. Mix like really, yeah,
those are not good, So I'm gonna make me one
one of these. But you like assalted rims, I do
like assalted rooms. This looks beautiful. This is beautiful. This
is the salt from the Swiman in the Bay Area
called Chica Salty, and she's been making these amazing salts.
(04:04):
This one is Harmica and Tilo Akiga. Yeah, she has
some really beautiful flavors. Were in my living room making
a margarita, which we transformed he was living room into
a bar. This is going to be the best episode
ever because we're gonna be drinking. I put a lot
of blanco. You never I noticed that you don't measure, No,
(04:27):
you just I don't measure. Don't measure. I just eye
eyeball ounces. I didn't even know that was this was
this thing. Yeah, no idea that was measuring. That was
for measuring. Yeah, I always measure, So I just want
to make sure that they always tastes exactly decent. That
color color, yeah, why is it? So? Is it because
(04:48):
of the simple syrup? That's delicious. It's delicious lime in
a gavey that's really delicious. The thing about tequila is
a lot of people use it in cocktails, um, And
they try to hide the tequila. Hence the margarita mix
and the control and the orange of the corn. That
you want to hide the tequila, you don't. You want
(05:08):
to shine. You want to bring out the flavors of tequila.
That's why we don't do lime salt with our tequila.
Lime salt does not add an advantage that the ram
you um, is that what you mean? No? Meaning shot
like they come from. But I feel like that's like springbark,
it's super springbreak, Like here's a lime in some salt
(05:32):
and lick it off somebody's breast. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no,
it's well. The thing I love about tequila because a
lot of agave will produce mescal, a handful of a
gave will produce blue, but only one gave will produce tequila.
And that's what makes tequila very special. It has to
be this particular plan. And I think, like, um, there's
(05:55):
so many people in the world who love tequila but
hate the country of Mexico, you know what I mean.
And so this bridge of food and culture, UM to
hear the mescal, the people of the mescal makers, to
hear the stories of the tequila makers are normally six
seventh generation tequila makers. They are They've been doing this
(06:16):
for centuries. It's a family. It's a family. I would
love people to have an appreciation for the for this
art form. It's a beautiful art form. They still use
horses to pull down to pull the rock that presses
the agabe. It's so beautiful. It's artisan. Astian. I mean,
it's again going back to how he started. It's the
(06:38):
spirit of the country, of the country, the spirit of
the country. You mentioned when you were talking about Maya,
well that the pinya is cooked basically, it's you know,
when when the leaves the bank as are cut, it
leaves this giant it looks like a giant pineapple, looks
like a pineapple. That's why it's called. And you also
(06:59):
mentioned that the i wan mead, which is this sweet
you know, honey water that's inside so that yeah, when
you cook it, you can buy chew on it like
a sugarcane. That's what it feels like in texture. Really,
So they cook, they cut the pini in half and
they put it through the orno, the oven, and then
(07:19):
when it comes out, they chop it up again and
those little pieces. You can like chew on it and
it's like sugarcane. That's how sweet it is. That's so interesting.
That's what they press, and the press and press and
then that becomes tequila. It's super sweet. Soul proceeded preceded
all of this. So so basically this drink is it's
(07:41):
a fermented beverage. So it's a it has about as
much alcohol as a mild beer. It's like think about
it like a little like a boozy fermented drink from
the from the wad, you know, from this sort of
honey water. Um. And this was a ceremonial drink to them,
to the decks, and you know, Preconquest, drunkenness was frowned upon.
(08:04):
You could be put to that. You could be Yes,
you could be put to that. I mean if you
were in public drunk, Yeah, you could not. It was
not you could not get drunk because it was sacred.
It was sacred and drunk being intoxicated, that state of
intoxication was a realm of the gods. So overstepping that boundary,
(08:24):
how dare you step in the of the gods? I
stepped into the realm of the gods. Nightly, let me
tell you, Yeah, it wasn't a while, and that's something
that hey, I'm in the realm of the gods. I'm
in the realm of the God. I can't wait till
the next time I'm drunk, and that's all I'm gonna say. Yes,
But it was also if you did go to this
realm of the gods, you were in the southern space
(08:45):
and be the morning right. The hangover of the next
day was this this rebirth right. So it was this
it was very sacred. And the last five days of
the year in the calendar and the stic calendar, so
your you know, day three sixty to three sixty five
were considered dead days and this is when you know,
(09:07):
people would drink. They weren't really sure if the gods
were going to grant another year, so it was sort
of okay. And even children were given to you know,
reach this another state, sort of the state of adulthood.
So it was very very very you know, ceremonial, and
it was given like priests would take it before ceremonies
(09:29):
to so that they could you know, become euphoric or sacrificial.
Victims would given would be given it that they could
you imagine having beer. Yeah, like, can I got a
shot before you sacrifice me to the gods? Yeah? No,
it's like elderly women could drink it. Elderly woman could
drink it. Yes, they weren't arrested. No, it was okay
(09:50):
for elderly women. Women. Yeah, I've lived my life, leave
me be. They just had to have somebody, a child
or a grandchild, somebody taking care of them when they
were drinking so they wouldn't do something stupid like fall
into a hole. Again. Yeah, but you see images in
the different codex is the quotas Borgia has one, and
(10:13):
you have the women, and they're the drawings. They have
these wrinkled you know faces. Yeah, you've lived your lives
because you get drunk. Because Bulke proceeded all of this,
they say, bulk is considered Mescal's mother and Tequila's grandmother,
so Mescal came next, came next. Don't go anywhere, hungry
(10:34):
for history will be right back. Distillation practices were introduced
early on in the conquest, and the first Mescal is
(10:55):
said to have been made around so pretty early post
conquest in when Wahaka. The word misscal comes from the
nowl Misscali, which means oven cooked ave, so they were
cooking all they were cooking as Yeah, so you can
make mescal from like basically tequila is a mescal and
for for years it was called miscal wine or mescal
(11:18):
brandy um. But it's basically, you know, the same things.
The plant is striptives leaves and it leaves that the
pina which is then baked underground for days and then
it's crushed with a stone mill and then the crushed
to gave is then um fermented before being distilled. So
it's very you know, it's artisanal, right, So for centuries
(11:39):
it was known as missal brandy um. So it's really
a drink that brings together old traditions of the plant
cooking at the plant. But the cooking of the plant
is the new tradition, right, because was just the fermented
um the same miss skull is the liquid which binds generations.
(12:01):
Why what does that mean? It brings together the old
world and the new world, and it really is sort
of the soul, you know, of of the of the countries.
When Mexico is right, it's a combination of these two
worlds and it's you know, distilled from this plant that's
that's so you know, ceremonial that it really represents, you know, Mexico.
But this whole idea of you know, drunkenness. When the Conquest,
(12:22):
the Europeans were used to getting drunk. I mean they
didn't have any It was like whatever, and it became
drinking became secularized. My great recipe has simple syrup, a
little bit of us blanco. So I'm going to do
half an ounce of triple sec. Let me do it
(12:45):
money and I saw the glass, Yes, sell at the glass.
And then I'm going to do the juice of one line,
which is about announced from doing a little bit of
a govit. How this is so thick, just like a
quarter like just I think we got at it on
the microphone. I know, I'm good. Said that. And now
(13:06):
I'm going to add two ounces of tequila. That's what
I did. That's what you did, but maybe you did
like more than that. I bought two ounces, you know
the other sides two ounces? Oh it is, Yeah, that's
what I learned this. I'm telling you, I had no
idea that is too well, this is two ounces. Yeah, okay,
(13:26):
So I'm not going to fill it all the way
I think that's really I have like three and then
you're the ice, and then my eyes and then I'm
going to shake. I just don't have a lid, so
just hold it with your hands. Okay, this is so exciting.
I love that you're supposed to shake, shake, shake until
(13:47):
you feel like you're gonna get frost bite. And that
that's when you know. That's great. Take dirt. That's called
a dirty poor when you just pour all the ice
and everything. Yeah. I usually do separately, but hey, this
is good. How is it? I want to I want
to see what you've been mm hmmm, that's good. I
taste that orange liquor. Let me see taste. I feel
like I put too much of glovey in mine. Now
(14:08):
you can taste the orange liquor. I let them both.
I love them both. Oh my god, I don't know
what who is dangerous? Like we just switching if we
didn't do all. Come, I really love your margaritas. I'm
gonna start making it like m h wait, tell me
(14:30):
what's the history of the margarita. There's like two different theories.
But there's a cocktail historian named David Wondrich, and there's
this really interesting book written in the nineteenth century American
book it's called The Bartender's Guide by a man named
Jerry Thomas, has written in the nineteenth century and one
of the it has a list of the earth. Margarite
has been around since the eighteen hundreds. No, but there
(14:52):
is a really cocktail called a daisy, okay, and it
was made with line, you know, citrus, juice, gin or
whiske all cocktails in the nineteenth century and their gin
basically gin or whiskey and brandy. And it had you know,
basically the spirit. It had granadine and it had citrus
and that's it. And it was called a daisy and
it was a classic American cocktail. So legend has it
(15:15):
that during Prohibition somebody went to Ti Koran across supported
and ordered a daisy and the barteer grabbed a bottle
of tequila and called it margharita. Daisy and Margharita that's
the same, it's the flower. Did you get into tequila? Like? Why?
I think I was approached so many times to do
it tequila because I'm Mexican. They're like your Mexican, you
should have tequila brand. And I was like, I'm not
slapping my name on something and this brand came to me. Um,
(15:38):
I mean not, this brand wasn't even a brand yet.
They just came to me this amazing woman. We have
a female master distiller, which is super rare, and our
CEO of the company as a woman. The CEO of
the distillery is a woman. Um. The distillery is Mexican owned,
which I was like, wait, yeah, they're all Mexican on
(15:58):
there go no most to not in their own by
a mari Amarican conglomerates that have gone down there and
bought up the gobe fields and so so the money
doesn't stay in the region. And I was like, oh, interesting.
And so it's just a super Mexican forward tequila, which
I'm like, duh, Aquila should be Mexican, should be made
by Mexican, sold by Mexicans, and they Mexican should profit
(16:20):
from it. And it was a female forward brand and
in a very mucho space, and I was like, okay,
I'm interested. So I leaned in because of all of that,
and then I tasted it. It's so creamy, super creamy,
not sweet, but smooth it is, and you have those
cognac notes of vanilla caramel depending on the blanco. And
(16:44):
it was the first time, like I said, I noticed
notes in a tequila. So that's how I got interested.
And then after that, now I'm like a tequila connaser,
Like now I taste everything, I drink everything. I'm like,
oh my gosh, what is that? What is this? What
is that crystallino versus you know extra? And yeho's what
makes it an extra? And yeah, like it's fascinating. I
finally understood like the notes and how I was like,
(17:04):
how can tequila have notes like wine? Like I don't
get it. I don't get it. And it's so much
more complex. It's a chemical mixture. I mean it is.
You've got to get rid of the acetone and the
ethanol and the alcohol. And you know, each barrel has
the head, the tail and the heart, and the tail
is like all the toxins and stuff, bad stuff, and
(17:27):
the head is all your hangover basically ethanol alcohol, but
it's a little sweeter. So you need a tequila master
who really pulls out the heart of the barrel, but
a little bit ahead, maybe a little bit of tail
if you want a little this or that. Like there's
it's a whole science and U and so you usually
have to have a chemical engineering degree, and there's a
school in Guadalakata that specializes in this degree. Um because
(17:52):
that's where tequila comes from. Yeah, here's the other thing
people don't know about tequila. Tequila it has to be
it has to be from the blue agave, from Jalisco,
from the region here, from the region, just like champagne,
Just like champagne. Exactly, exactly. When we come back, Ivan Vasquez,
owner of Mother Restaurant in Los Angeles, tells us about
(18:14):
Mescal and how deeply rooted it is in Wahacan culture.
Welcome back to Hungry for history. We couldn't be more
(18:34):
excited for you to hear from Ivan Vasquez. He is
the owner of Mother Restaurant in Los Angeles. He was
born and raised in Wahaca, Mexico, and has a deep
love and appreciation for Misscal. My name is in my
passionate from Mescal. It started since I was at your child.
I grew up with my grandpa and he had a
(18:56):
mini expandios, a small liqual bar shop in the community
and he used to selve Mescal. Two locals being at
his shop helping him out. I remember listening to the
conversations with the master from escalleto that I used to
selve scalp to my grandpa about how he learned how
(19:17):
to make me scan through previous generations, and I saw
how hard it was. And according to my mom, my
first mescal was probably at the age of eight years old,
a little ship that my grandpa gave me to try.
And when I came to the United States and I
realized that mescal was available in Los Angeles because we
(19:37):
needed it for celebrations. There was no celebration without scarlets.
He was part of our culture. It's part of our tradition.
It's like getting our cheese, are cla ulas, are molly.
And I learned how to respect it even more because
I understood that it was a state toward life here
even though we were in a different country, we as
(20:03):
humans and consumers called probably mark the end of a sculpturationality.
You wouldn't appreciate it, you wouldn't educate ourselves, and he
wouldn't educate others about these beautiful spirit that we have
the pleasure and this moment to enjoy. And I call
this the Golden Era because we have the greatest mescal
(20:26):
available for us now. Only in America, but as in
Mexico and some parts of your people are enjoying the
best mescal ever and many years because each mescalero family
they're trying to give you the best mescal because they
know what's happening with mescal and everybody is going crazy
(20:46):
for mescal, so they're trying to send the best batches,
the best product, the best production, the best of the best.
It's available for us. And this is the golden generation.
I don't know what's going to happen in the next generation,
but it's important and that we keep making people aware
and keep educating people so they can appreciate the spirits
(21:06):
because I'm afraid that industrial miscal might be killing traditional
miscal in the near future. With respect and tradition, that's
the only way to keep this a pretty lay. Oh
my god, I have the most amazing miscal story. So
I'm in Wahaka and there was this little old lady
that makes the best mescal of this particular town, and
(21:29):
they call her Labruca because they're like, why is she
selling more? Why does hers come out different? Labru Co
means the witch. They think she's doing some sort of
black magic to make her mescal the best of the
community lab. You can't just have a woman does skill
(21:54):
set sad and really great land. And so there's traditional
mescal are to sino mescal and industrial miscal and so
you can't buy traditional that is what the people of
the old misscal people. I mean you you can, like
I bought some there, but like you, there's not for commercial.
(22:16):
You won't have five. Yeah, you won't have it a
total wine right um. And so if you can find
if you're ever in Mexico and you go to Misscal
bar asthm, do you have traditional mescal? And they probably
will say no, or they'll say I have a bottle.
Because what happens to the traditional mescal makers like her
don They make enough for their family, enough for the community,
(22:41):
and if they have any leftover, they sell it. And
I go, well that's a horrible business model, and she goes,
why would I need more? Like her? Like my capitalist
mine was like you should sell first and whatever you
have left over you give to your family and community.
And no, they give away first, and if they have
any leftover after everybody has their Misscal, then they sell it.
(23:05):
So the only Misscal you can buy from her is
in her house and she has it like under the
Jesus and the altar, and she's like, here's a bottle.
You know, you're like, oh my, this is crazy. I
love that because it is the strength that binds generations.
And she's probably has her family has been making misscal
probably for generations, and they revere it and they want
to share it and yeah, and they and they don't
(23:27):
need more. Like she did a feast for us, but
like when I say a feast, a feast of that.
She made all these and different and she said, I'm
so sorry I have nothing more to offer, and my
my heart sunk. I was like, are you kidding me?
Think you just offered this feast your time and your
(23:49):
time and your and your story. Her story was beautiful
and uh and she was like speaking in terms of
I don't have anything materialistically to give you, and we're like,
it's experience is the gift that we need? It was,
It was beautiful. There are cycles a gobb goes and
cycles of planting, so you'll see a shortage of a
(24:10):
gove and an abundance of God. Literally two years ago,
they're burning a gove because there's just too much. They
just had too much, and then now there's an a
gob shortage, and then there's too much, and then there's
too little, and then there's too much. It's just the
cycle of the soil near gave. But the industrialization of
a gove and the demand for a gove or tequila, sorry, um,
the demand for tequila has really put pressure on all
(24:33):
these distilleries in Mexico to produce faster, produce more, hurry up,
and so sometimes they're cutting down these agaves too soon
and the soil doesn't have time to replenish. And like
I said, those barrels have the head, the tail, and
the heart, and you want to get the heart. A
lot of people just using the whole barrel because they
want more tequila. But more you have you don't have
a good quality. Then you don't have good quality. And
(24:53):
that's the tequila gives you the hangover. That's the tequila
doesn't taste good. That's the tequila that burns. And so
really you can really go down a rabbit hole of
like um, tasting different tiquilas and identifying, oh, this is
really good, this is good and why because they chose
the heart of the barrel as opposed to using the
whole production, and again the heart, the spirit, so poetic,
(25:15):
it's so poetic. It's so poetic. Well, cheers to our
Bol Mescal and episode salute Salude. Hungry for History is
an unbelievable entertainment production in partnership with I Hearts Michael
podcast Network. For more of your favorite shows, visit the
(25:37):
I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
And Aztec mythology. The fertility goddess Maya is a personification
of the agave plant, the source of some of the
most delicious spirits in Mexican culture. Today's episode is about pulque, mescal,
and tequila. My name is Eva Longoria and I am
and welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores
(00:23):
our past and present through food. On every episode, we'll
talk about the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients,
and beverages. So make yourself at home. Today's episode is
a couple of my favorite topics. I mean mostly tequila
is my favorite topic, but we're also talking and mescal,
(00:45):
which is mu the moda as we say in Mexico.
It's very in right now. The first of all, this
word spirits I love. Oh yeah, I didn't even connect
that sit. I connected this like I was talking about
it and I was like, oh my god. Spirit. The
word spirit is so loaded. It's sort of the spirit
(01:08):
of the plant, you know. But so there's just so
much history and so much soul there. So just starting
with that that that alcohol, most alcohol is called spirit
the spirits, except if it's wine or beer. Yeah, exactly,
because they're they're fermented and bulk is fermented. But in
mythology mast tech mythology, ma Yah who is personified by
(01:31):
the agave plant, so the aga, and she's a goddess
of fertility. She's a goddess of of nourishment, and she's
this figure coming sometimes coming out of the agave or
sometimes holding the You know, that's the logo of my Tequila.
My will I never know this what that is so
funny that you put it in our episode. I thought
you put it from my Tequila because nobody she's never
(01:55):
been in a brand. And she's the goddess. She's known
as the goddess of tequila, obviously. And the myth is
that she had this forbidden love with the god of air,
and she created the agave plant to hide their love
from her grandmother, who did not want them to be together.
It was very Romeo and Juliet, and so they would
(02:15):
make love behind this big agave plant. And when the
grandmother found out, she's sent a bolt of lightning down
to the plant and that's when the agave cracked open,
the pina was cooked, and they found out a sweet
nectar was released from from their love. From their love,
their hidden forbidden love beautiful, and the and the leaves themselves,
(02:37):
the bank us that's supposed to be four hundred, which
represent the four children, her four children, and also the
four hundred ways of being intoxicated. There's only four ways
to be intoxicated. The The interesting thing is four is
not a literal number, but it represents infinity. So the
(03:00):
infinite numbers of being intoxicated are her, her leaves. And
this is you know, this is this is the goddess.
And it's about nourishment, and it's about fertili and it's
about love. Yeah, it is about love. Should we make it?
I'm gonna make I'm gonna make you a tequila. I'm
(03:20):
gonna make you a margarita. Okay, A mythologists tell me
a margharita is only limon a gave. Interesting with your tequila, right,
But if you want a blueberry blueberry margaret, it's blueberry
Limon gave. If you want a watermelon margarite, it's watermelon Limon.
You don't use simple sarah, I don't use I don't
use simple syrup. I don't use triple suck. I don't
(03:42):
use contro. I don't use a margarita. Mix like really, yeah,
those are not good, So I'm gonna make me one
one of these. But you like assalted rims, I do
like assalted rooms. This looks beautiful. This is beautiful. This
is the salt from the Swiman in the Bay Area
called Chica Salty, and she's been making these amazing salts.
(04:04):
This one is Harmica and Tilo Akiga. Yeah, she has
some really beautiful flavors. Were in my living room making
a margarita, which we transformed he was living room into
a bar. This is going to be the best episode
ever because we're gonna be drinking. I put a lot
of blanco. You never I noticed that you don't measure, No,
(04:27):
you just I don't measure. Don't measure. I just eye
eyeball ounces. I didn't even know that was this was
this thing. Yeah, no idea that was measuring. That was
for measuring. Yeah, I always measure, So I just want
to make sure that they always tastes exactly decent. That
color color, yeah, why is it? So? Is it because
(04:48):
of the simple syrup? That's delicious. It's delicious lime in
a gavey that's really delicious. The thing about tequila is
a lot of people use it in cocktails, um, And
they try to hide the tequila. Hence the margarita mix
and the control and the orange of the corn. That
you want to hide the tequila, you don't. You want
(05:08):
to shine. You want to bring out the flavors of tequila.
That's why we don't do lime salt with our tequila.
Lime salt does not add an advantage that the ram
you um, is that what you mean? No? Meaning shot
like they come from. But I feel like that's like springbark,
it's super springbreak, Like here's a lime in some salt
(05:32):
and lick it off somebody's breast. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no,
it's well. The thing I love about tequila because a
lot of agave will produce mescal, a handful of a
gave will produce blue, but only one gave will produce tequila.
And that's what makes tequila very special. It has to
be this particular plan. And I think, like, um, there's
(05:55):
so many people in the world who love tequila but
hate the country of Mexico, you know what I mean.
And so this bridge of food and culture, UM to
hear the mescal, the people of the mescal makers, to
hear the stories of the tequila makers are normally six
seventh generation tequila makers. They are They've been doing this
(06:16):
for centuries. It's a family. It's a family. I would
love people to have an appreciation for the for this
art form. It's a beautiful art form. They still use
horses to pull down to pull the rock that presses
the agabe. It's so beautiful. It's artisan. Astian. I mean,
it's again going back to how he started. It's the
(06:38):
spirit of the country, of the country, the spirit of
the country. You mentioned when you were talking about Maya,
well that the pinya is cooked basically, it's you know,
when when the leaves the bank as are cut, it
leaves this giant it looks like a giant pineapple, looks
like a pineapple. That's why it's called. And you also
(06:59):
mentioned that the i wan mead, which is this sweet
you know, honey water that's inside so that yeah, when
you cook it, you can buy chew on it like
a sugarcane. That's what it feels like in texture. Really,
So they cook, they cut the pini in half and
they put it through the orno, the oven, and then
(07:19):
when it comes out, they chop it up again and
those little pieces. You can like chew on it and
it's like sugarcane. That's how sweet it is. That's so interesting.
That's what they press, and the press and press and
then that becomes tequila. It's super sweet. Soul proceeded preceded
all of this. So so basically this drink is it's
(07:41):
a fermented beverage. So it's a it has about as
much alcohol as a mild beer. It's like think about
it like a little like a boozy fermented drink from
the from the wad, you know, from this sort of
honey water. Um. And this was a ceremonial drink to them,
to the decks, and you know, Preconquest, drunkenness was frowned upon.
(08:04):
You could be put to that. You could be Yes,
you could be put to that. I mean if you
were in public drunk, Yeah, you could not. It was
not you could not get drunk because it was sacred.
It was sacred and drunk being intoxicated, that state of
intoxication was a realm of the gods. So overstepping that boundary,
(08:24):
how dare you step in the of the gods? I
stepped into the realm of the gods. Nightly, let me
tell you, Yeah, it wasn't a while, and that's something
that hey, I'm in the realm of the gods. I'm
in the realm of the God. I can't wait till
the next time I'm drunk, and that's all I'm gonna say. Yes,
But it was also if you did go to this
realm of the gods, you were in the southern space
(08:45):
and be the morning right. The hangover of the next
day was this this rebirth right. So it was this
it was very sacred. And the last five days of
the year in the calendar and the stic calendar, so
your you know, day three sixty to three sixty five
were considered dead days and this is when you know,
(09:07):
people would drink. They weren't really sure if the gods
were going to grant another year, so it was sort
of okay. And even children were given to you know,
reach this another state, sort of the state of adulthood.
So it was very very very you know, ceremonial, and
it was given like priests would take it before ceremonies
(09:29):
to so that they could you know, become euphoric or sacrificial.
Victims would given would be given it that they could
you imagine having beer. Yeah, like, can I got a
shot before you sacrifice me to the gods? Yeah? No,
it's like elderly women could drink it. Elderly woman could
drink it. Yes, they weren't arrested. No, it was okay
(09:50):
for elderly women. Women. Yeah, I've lived my life, leave
me be. They just had to have somebody, a child
or a grandchild, somebody taking care of them when they
were drinking so they wouldn't do something stupid like fall
into a hole. Again. Yeah, but you see images in
the different codex is the quotas Borgia has one, and
(10:13):
you have the women, and they're the drawings. They have
these wrinkled you know faces. Yeah, you've lived your lives
because you get drunk. Because Bulke proceeded all of this,
they say, bulk is considered Mescal's mother and Tequila's grandmother,
so Mescal came next, came next. Don't go anywhere, hungry
(10:34):
for history will be right back. Distillation practices were introduced
early on in the conquest, and the first Mescal is
(10:55):
said to have been made around so pretty early post
conquest in when Wahaka. The word misscal comes from the
nowl Misscali, which means oven cooked ave, so they were
cooking all they were cooking as Yeah, so you can
make mescal from like basically tequila is a mescal and
for for years it was called miscal wine or mescal
(11:18):
brandy um. But it's basically, you know, the same things.
The plant is striptives leaves and it leaves that the
pina which is then baked underground for days and then
it's crushed with a stone mill and then the crushed
to gave is then um fermented before being distilled. So
it's very you know, it's artisanal, right, So for centuries
(11:39):
it was known as missal brandy um. So it's really
a drink that brings together old traditions of the plant
cooking at the plant. But the cooking of the plant
is the new tradition, right, because was just the fermented
um the same miss skull is the liquid which binds generations.
(12:01):
Why what does that mean? It brings together the old
world and the new world, and it really is sort
of the soul, you know, of of the of the countries.
When Mexico is right, it's a combination of these two
worlds and it's you know, distilled from this plant that's
that's so you know, ceremonial that it really represents, you know, Mexico.
But this whole idea of you know, drunkenness. When the Conquest,
(12:22):
the Europeans were used to getting drunk. I mean they
didn't have any It was like whatever, and it became
drinking became secularized. My great recipe has simple syrup, a
little bit of us blanco. So I'm going to do
half an ounce of triple sec. Let me do it
(12:45):
money and I saw the glass, Yes, sell at the glass.
And then I'm going to do the juice of one line,
which is about announced from doing a little bit of
a govit. How this is so thick, just like a
quarter like just I think we got at it on
the microphone. I know, I'm good. Said that. And now
(13:06):
I'm going to add two ounces of tequila. That's what
I did. That's what you did, but maybe you did
like more than that. I bought two ounces, you know
the other sides two ounces? Oh it is, Yeah, that's
what I learned this. I'm telling you, I had no
idea that is too well, this is two ounces. Yeah, okay,
(13:26):
So I'm not going to fill it all the way
I think that's really I have like three and then
you're the ice, and then my eyes and then I'm
going to shake. I just don't have a lid, so
just hold it with your hands. Okay, this is so exciting.
I love that you're supposed to shake, shake, shake until
(13:47):
you feel like you're gonna get frost bite. And that
that's when you know. That's great. Take dirt. That's called
a dirty poor when you just pour all the ice
and everything. Yeah. I usually do separately, but hey, this
is good. How is it? I want to I want
to see what you've been mm hmmm, that's good. I
taste that orange liquor. Let me see taste. I feel
like I put too much of glovey in mine. Now
(14:08):
you can taste the orange liquor. I let them both.
I love them both. Oh my god, I don't know
what who is dangerous? Like we just switching if we
didn't do all. Come, I really love your margaritas. I'm
gonna start making it like m h wait, tell me
(14:30):
what's the history of the margarita. There's like two different theories.
But there's a cocktail historian named David Wondrich, and there's
this really interesting book written in the nineteenth century American
book it's called The Bartender's Guide by a man named
Jerry Thomas, has written in the nineteenth century and one
of the it has a list of the earth. Margarite
has been around since the eighteen hundreds. No, but there
(14:52):
is a really cocktail called a daisy, okay, and it
was made with line, you know, citrus, juice, gin or
whiske all cocktails in the nineteenth century and their gin
basically gin or whiskey and brandy. And it had you know,
basically the spirit. It had granadine and it had citrus
and that's it. And it was called a daisy and
it was a classic American cocktail. So legend has it
(15:15):
that during Prohibition somebody went to Ti Koran across supported
and ordered a daisy and the barteer grabbed a bottle
of tequila and called it margharita. Daisy and Margharita that's
the same, it's the flower. Did you get into tequila? Like? Why?
I think I was approached so many times to do
it tequila because I'm Mexican. They're like your Mexican, you
should have tequila brand. And I was like, I'm not
slapping my name on something and this brand came to me. Um,
(15:38):
I mean not, this brand wasn't even a brand yet.
They just came to me this amazing woman. We have
a female master distiller, which is super rare, and our
CEO of the company as a woman. The CEO of
the distillery is a woman. Um. The distillery is Mexican owned,
which I was like, wait, yeah, they're all Mexican on
(15:58):
there go no most to not in their own by
a mari Amarican conglomerates that have gone down there and
bought up the gobe fields and so so the money
doesn't stay in the region. And I was like, oh, interesting.
And so it's just a super Mexican forward tequila, which
I'm like, duh, Aquila should be Mexican, should be made
by Mexican, sold by Mexicans, and they Mexican should profit
(16:20):
from it. And it was a female forward brand and
in a very mucho space, and I was like, okay,
I'm interested. So I leaned in because of all of that,
and then I tasted it. It's so creamy, super creamy,
not sweet, but smooth it is, and you have those
cognac notes of vanilla caramel depending on the blanco. And
(16:44):
it was the first time, like I said, I noticed
notes in a tequila. So that's how I got interested.
And then after that, now I'm like a tequila connaser,
Like now I taste everything, I drink everything. I'm like,
oh my gosh, what is that? What is this? What
is that crystallino versus you know extra? And yeho's what
makes it an extra? And yeah, like it's fascinating. I
finally understood like the notes and how I was like,
(17:04):
how can tequila have notes like wine? Like I don't
get it. I don't get it. And it's so much
more complex. It's a chemical mixture. I mean it is.
You've got to get rid of the acetone and the
ethanol and the alcohol. And you know, each barrel has
the head, the tail and the heart, and the tail
is like all the toxins and stuff, bad stuff, and
(17:27):
the head is all your hangover basically ethanol alcohol, but
it's a little sweeter. So you need a tequila master
who really pulls out the heart of the barrel, but
a little bit ahead, maybe a little bit of tail
if you want a little this or that. Like there's
it's a whole science and U and so you usually
have to have a chemical engineering degree, and there's a
school in Guadalakata that specializes in this degree. Um because
(17:52):
that's where tequila comes from. Yeah, here's the other thing
people don't know about tequila. Tequila it has to be
it has to be from the blue agave, from Jalisco,
from the region here, from the region, just like champagne,
Just like champagne. Exactly, exactly. When we come back, Ivan Vasquez,
owner of Mother Restaurant in Los Angeles, tells us about
(18:14):
Mescal and how deeply rooted it is in Wahacan culture.
Welcome back to Hungry for history. We couldn't be more
(18:34):
excited for you to hear from Ivan Vasquez. He is
the owner of Mother Restaurant in Los Angeles. He was
born and raised in Wahaca, Mexico, and has a deep
love and appreciation for Misscal. My name is in my
passionate from Mescal. It started since I was at your child.
I grew up with my grandpa and he had a
(18:56):
mini expandios, a small liqual bar shop in the community
and he used to selve Mescal. Two locals being at
his shop helping him out. I remember listening to the
conversations with the master from escalleto that I used to
selve scalp to my grandpa about how he learned how
(19:17):
to make me scan through previous generations, and I saw
how hard it was. And according to my mom, my
first mescal was probably at the age of eight years old,
a little ship that my grandpa gave me to try.
And when I came to the United States and I
realized that mescal was available in Los Angeles because we
(19:37):
needed it for celebrations. There was no celebration without scarlets.
He was part of our culture. It's part of our tradition.
It's like getting our cheese, are cla ulas, are molly.
And I learned how to respect it even more because
I understood that it was a state toward life here
even though we were in a different country, we as
(20:03):
humans and consumers called probably mark the end of a sculpturationality.
You wouldn't appreciate it, you wouldn't educate ourselves, and he
wouldn't educate others about these beautiful spirit that we have
the pleasure and this moment to enjoy. And I call
this the Golden Era because we have the greatest mescal
(20:26):
available for us now. Only in America, but as in
Mexico and some parts of your people are enjoying the
best mescal ever and many years because each mescalero family
they're trying to give you the best mescal because they
know what's happening with mescal and everybody is going crazy
(20:46):
for mescal, so they're trying to send the best batches,
the best product, the best production, the best of the best.
It's available for us. And this is the golden generation.
I don't know what's going to happen in the next generation,
but it's important and that we keep making people aware
and keep educating people so they can appreciate the spirits
(21:06):
because I'm afraid that industrial miscal might be killing traditional
miscal in the near future. With respect and tradition, that's
the only way to keep this a pretty lay. Oh
my god, I have the most amazing miscal story. So
I'm in Wahaka and there was this little old lady
that makes the best mescal of this particular town, and
(21:29):
they call her Labruca because they're like, why is she
selling more? Why does hers come out different? Labru Co
means the witch. They think she's doing some sort of
black magic to make her mescal the best of the
community lab. You can't just have a woman does skill
(21:54):
set sad and really great land. And so there's traditional
mescal are to sino mescal and industrial miscal and so
you can't buy traditional that is what the people of
the old misscal people. I mean you you can, like
I bought some there, but like you, there's not for commercial.
(22:16):
You won't have five. Yeah, you won't have it a
total wine right um. And so if you can find
if you're ever in Mexico and you go to Misscal
bar asthm, do you have traditional mescal? And they probably
will say no, or they'll say I have a bottle.
Because what happens to the traditional mescal makers like her
don They make enough for their family, enough for the community,
(22:41):
and if they have any leftover, they sell it. And
I go, well that's a horrible business model, and she goes,
why would I need more? Like her? Like my capitalist
mine was like you should sell first and whatever you
have left over you give to your family and community.
And no, they give away first, and if they have
any leftover after everybody has their Misscal, then they sell it.
(23:05):
So the only Misscal you can buy from her is
in her house and she has it like under the
Jesus and the altar, and she's like, here's a bottle.
You know, you're like, oh my, this is crazy. I
love that because it is the strength that binds generations.
And she's probably has her family has been making misscal
probably for generations, and they revere it and they want
to share it and yeah, and they and they don't
(23:27):
need more. Like she did a feast for us, but
like when I say a feast, a feast of that.
She made all these and different and she said, I'm
so sorry I have nothing more to offer, and my
my heart sunk. I was like, are you kidding me?
Think you just offered this feast your time and your
(23:49):
time and your and your story. Her story was beautiful
and uh and she was like speaking in terms of
I don't have anything materialistically to give you, and we're like,
it's experience is the gift that we need? It was,
It was beautiful. There are cycles a gobb goes and
cycles of planting, so you'll see a shortage of a
(24:10):
gove and an abundance of God. Literally two years ago,
they're burning a gove because there's just too much. They
just had too much, and then now there's an a
gob shortage, and then there's too much, and then there's
too little, and then there's too much. It's just the
cycle of the soil near gave. But the industrialization of
a gove and the demand for a gove or tequila, sorry, um,
the demand for tequila has really put pressure on all
(24:33):
these distilleries in Mexico to produce faster, produce more, hurry up,
and so sometimes they're cutting down these agaves too soon
and the soil doesn't have time to replenish. And like
I said, those barrels have the head, the tail, and
the heart, and you want to get the heart. A
lot of people just using the whole barrel because they
want more tequila. But more you have you don't have
a good quality. Then you don't have good quality. And
(24:53):
that's the tequila gives you the hangover. That's the tequila
doesn't taste good. That's the tequila that burns. And so
really you can really go down a rabbit hole of
like um, tasting different tiquilas and identifying, oh, this is
really good, this is good and why because they chose
the heart of the barrel as opposed to using the
whole production, and again the heart, the spirit, so poetic,
(25:15):
it's so poetic. It's so poetic. Well, cheers to our
Bol Mescal and episode salute Salude. Hungry for History is
an unbelievable entertainment production in partnership with I Hearts Michael
podcast Network. For more of your favorite shows, visit the
(25:37):
I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
MAITE GOMEZ-REJÓN
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