Pal’alma is the export brand for Almamezcalera, the bottling label from Mexico City’s notorious “Indiana Jones of Agave”, Erick Rodriguez. Equal parts historian and adventurer, Erick travels to remote production sites all over Mexico sourcing unique agave distillates. Deeply committed to local traditions, Erick’s collaborators are all bona fide local legends in their own right. Working with just a single mezcalero per state, including several states (such as Nuevo León and Sonora) not currently acknowledged under the “Mezcal” Denomination of Origin, Erick bottles tiny batches of truly thrilling, uncertified “aguardiente de agave.
Made by maestro mezcalero Fidel L. and produced in Sonora, Mexico, this 100% Lechuguilla (A. bovicornuta) is cooked in a conical earthen oven and milled by hand with a club-shaped mallet (‘mazo’). Fermented in a suspended rawhide sack, then distilled twice using hybrid ‘Filipino style’ clay pot stills with a condenser made from repurposed automobile radiator. Notes of parmesan rind, strawberry cream, vanilla, cantaloupe, cream cheese, pear skin, wet stone, asparagus, and fresh hay.
