By Benjy Ege | The Sacramento Bee
On a current brisk March morning in Woodland’s rolling hills, Raul “Reppo” Chavez was already lined in sweat.
Chavez and his cousin Antonio had spent the final half-hour hacking away at their agave vegetation — monstrous pineapple-looking beasts whose spiky leaves are all that may be seen above the soil.
The jimadors, because the farmers of the distinctive succulent are known as, had been harvesting agave that they planted six to eight years in the past. After a stormy weekend, they'll roast the 100-pound agave hearts (often called piñas) for 5 to seven days in an 8-foot-deep pit lined with pumice and volcanic rocks from round Mount Lassen.
That is the place the burgeoning “Mezcalifornia” motion begins. It results in small-batch agave spirits produced by craft distilleries all through the state.
However don’t name it name it tequila or mezcal. That distinction is restricted solely to agave spirits produced in sure elements of Mexico.
Whatever the identify, it’s nonetheless a really area of interest, craft drink. Agave grows slowly and doesn’t but have streamlined manufacturing in the US. The ensuing liquors are scarce and costly.
But extra growers are planting agave — and tequila and mezcal are among the many United States’ hottest drinks. When requested concerning the demand for California-grown agave, farmer and agave advocate Craig Reynolds replied, “I feel it’s countless.”
“The craft distillers in California would purchase up each mature agave 10 occasions what I’m producing, 100 occasions. They’re in a position to promote their agave spirits at a premium,” Reynolds mentioned. “And it’s only a matter of it scaling up. We have now an extended solution to go to ever come near saturating the marketplace for agave spirits, in my view.”
How agave motion acquired began
Agave vegetation develop throughout California, from midtown Sacramento sidewalk plots to filth patches bordering freeways. However most aren’t Blue Weber agave (agave tequilana), the sort mostly used for distilling tequila and mezcal.
That’s what Reynolds and Chavez develop on neighboring hillsides owned by brothers Joe and Tom Muller in Woodland. The Chavez cousins turned acquainted with the trade whereas rising up within the Mexican state of Jalisco the place tequila is made, in a 6,000-person city known as Tonaya.
“Tonaya is a bit city, but it surely’s acquired lots, numerous acres of agave. So we began to work a bit bit over there. Not an excessive amount of — extra over right here, when (Reynolds) got here and began to plant that (plot),” Reppo Chavez mentioned.
Reynolds started rising agave in Colima, Mexico in 2006 that might later be used to make Dos Volcanes tequila, which was offered to lift cash for a nonprofit known as Challenge Amigo.
Reynolds used his trip days to inspect the agave and moonlighted as a Dos Volcanes importer to the U.S. whereas he was working full time as then-state Sen. Lois Wolk’s chief of workers. After retiring, he planted his first stateside agave in 2014.
He began with 500 vegetation and ended up with a motion. St. George Spirits grasp distiller Lance Winters, who is predicated in Alameda, made the primary batch of spirits in 2019. Others got here calling, each for processed agave and seedlings to start out their very own plots.
Reynolds based the California Agave Council in April 2020 to unite growers and set requirements throughout the board. One such precept, signed into state legislation in September: any bottle marketed as California agave spirits should be 100% produced from agave. Conventional tequila requires solely 51% agave juice, with the remainder coming from corn or cane sugar and coloring brokers.
Although Reynolds pioneered business agave manufacturing in California, he’s fast to distinguish between himself and “actual farmers” such because the Chavez cousins, who harvest his vegetation in addition to their very own.
That harvesting is tough work. As soon as the Chavez cousins lower the agaves’ quiotes (flowering stalks that shoot from the middle and point out the plant has totally matured) they've about eight months to extract the piñas.
The jimadors use two forms of coas (poles with sharp, spherical heads) to hack off the spiky leaves and root out the piñas, which they then pull out of the filth by hand. All that point spent rising, and that’s it for the agave, which could be harvested exactly as soon as.
They then load the piñas right into a truck for roasting, which may take one other week as soon as the subterranean oven is constructed. The agave leaves are then tilled again into the soil the place beans, clover and mustard develop as cowl crops.
As soon as roasted, the piñas are shredded and pressed to extract their sugary juices. Liquor makers then ferment and distill that liquid, proof it all the way down to one thing round 40-45% ABV and bottle it on the market. Every 750-milliliter bottle requires about 11 kilos of agave.
Drink up!
When Venus Spirits started importing Mexican agave juice to make spirits in 2014, the Santa Cruz distillery was one in every of three within the U.S. to take action, founder and distiller Sean Venus mentioned.
A pair hundred distillers do the identical now, Venus mentioned, however not many get their agave from California. Venus Spirits is likely one of the lucky few. It launched 450 bottles of El Ladrón Yolo, its first California-grown tackle tequila, in 2021, utilizing Reynolds’ agave.
The primary El Ladrón Yolo bottles had been offered solely within the distillery’s tasting room, although the following batch shall be barely bigger and distributed by way of different retailers. Venus Spirits nonetheless makes Mexican agave spirits, however they’re not the identical.
“It’s fairly a bit completely different. We get extra of the vegetal notes from California agave. It’s much less candy, however extra minerally, so it’s acquired extra of a real character and taste than Mexican agave spirits,” Venus mentioned. “It’s a very attention-grabbing factor. We’re roasting over almond wooden, and a bit little bit of that smoke character will get into the agave and comes by way of within the spirits.”
California filth prices greater than Jalisco land, and the normal cooking methodology Reynolds makes use of is time-intensive.
These elements drive the worth of the ensuing beverage up: a bottle of El Ladrón Yolo sells for $90, whereas Venus Spirits’ liquors produced from Mexican agave go for $42-$68.
But demand is excessive. Individuals are anticipated to spend greater than $13.3 billion on agave spirits tequila and mezcal this yr, overtaking vodka and whiskey because the nation’s most-bought spirit, in keeping with beverage analysis agency IWSR.
Venus and Reynolds anticipate costs to fall as California’s agave trade grows and turns into extra environment friendly. If extra California farmers develop agave, Venus Spirits will purchase it.
Within the meantime, Venus has planted a couple of seedlings across the distillery and is exploring bigger plots outdoors of Santa Cruz. “The entire type of farm-to-bottle factor is a course of that's actually attention-grabbing and unseen by (many) different distillers,” Venus mentioned. “I feel it’s one thing actually distinctive that's occurring proper now, and we’re simply excited to be a part of it.”
Proper crop, proper place?
California’s pure rising circumstances — excessive warmth, fertile soil and a Mediterranean local weather — make the state appropriate for agave in addition to many different crops. The California Agave Council now consists of farmers from counties as disparate as Lake, San Luis Obispo and Imperial.
However the Central Valley is the realm to observe, as a result of this crop takes little treasured water. That has farmers like Stuart Woolf ripping out their almond bushes in favor of agave vegetation.
Woolf’s household has farmed within the Westlands Water District because the late Nineteen Forties. The household immediately grows nuts, cotton, alliums, winegrapes, grains and extra on 20,000 acres round Huron in Fresno County. But with new state legal guidelines such because the Sustainable Groundwater Administration Act (SGMA) limiting the quantity of water farmers can pump, Woolf estimates he’ll finally fallow 40% of his land.
Woolf plans to lease a few of the area to industrial photo voltaic corporations, however needs to maintain farming the crops he can. He started rising 4,000 agave vegetation in a take a look at plot in 2019. Whereas none is mature but, they’re thriving thus far, he mentioned.
“Is that this one thing akin to when California first began stepping into the winegrape enterprise, and we’d have naysayers all around the world saying ‘good luck with that?’” Woolf questioned. “Once I drive round my neighborhood, there are agaves in every single place, simply in gardens or off the highway. We have now vegetation on the market in farm nation, the place no person is irrigating them, and so they appear to be thriving.”
They’re doing so properly, in truth, that Woolf will plant 160 acres of agave this yr, and he plans to do the identical in subsequent years — roughly 200,000 vegetation per yr. His 5 kids had little curiosity in carrying on the household’s farming legacy, but when he informed them about his agave plans over dinner, all of them wished in.
Woolf is doing all this planting with hopes that another person will construct a business plant to chop, warmth and extract juice from that many piñas, as a result of none at the moment exists in California. If nobody does by the point they’re able to be harvested, he nonetheless has a plan.
“I’m going to plant all this stuff, and if I can’t get any individual to take them off my fingers, I’m going to course of them myself,” Woolf mentioned. “It truly is a chicken-and-the-egg type of factor, and I'd be getting in lots deeper if I had been to try this. However I don’t know, I’m type of intrigued by the entire thought.”
Different persons are getting concerned on the analysis entrance, due to Woolf’s funding. He and his spouse Lisa donated $100,000 final yr for UC Davis researchers to analyze agave’s viability in California, with a give attention to figuring out rising places, plant attributes and future funding sources.
Agave can survive with little to no water throughout dry years, however frost could be killer and is extra doubtless in California than Mexico. If water is out there, Woolf is taking a look at utilizing drip irrigation for faster-growing, sugarier vegetation moderately than the dry farming sometimes performed in Mexico.
Agave spirits are rooted in Mexico, and mezcal particularly carries no small quantity of mysticism and cultural lore. However California can’t and isn’t making tequila or mezcal. It’s making its personal spirit.
“We’re simply one other a part of the household,” Reynolds mentioned. “We’re not attempting to take Mexican traditions. We’re California distillers doing their very own factor, studying alongside the best way.”
©2023 The Sacramento Bee. Go to sacbee.com. Distributed by Tribune Content material Company, LLC.