Capón agaves (AKA con quiote) are great, and we’ll get to all that, but what’s most exciting about this batch is the young mezcalera behind it. Daniela Ángeles is the 22 year old daughter of Lalo, and the 5th generation of the Ángeles family to make mezcal in Santa Catarina Minas, Oaxaca.

If you’d asked Dani just a few years ago what she wanted to do when she was older, she’d have said “a TV writer.” While her dad wasn’t shy about voicing his hopes for her to follow in his footsteps and make mezcal, he supported her choice to go to college in Mexico City and pursue writing.

When COVID hit, Dani moved back home to Oaxaca and continued her classes online. Being away from her school friends and wanting to earn some money, Dani started to get involved in her dad's business - labeling bottles, giving tours to tourists who continued to visit, tending their small bottle shop, and eventually shadowing her father during the composition of his destilados.

If you ask Lalo, the composition (blending of heads, hearts and tails from a batch to fine tune its flavors, aromas, body and % ABV) is the step that requires true artistry - the rest is craft. He’d also tell you that the only reason he’s good at what he does is because he has a passion for it and has worked hard, not because he has any natural ability or special palate. Daniela on the other hand, he describes as the “Maradona of mezcal” - someone with a god given talent for being able to appreciate flavors and aromas on a different level from those of us with a standard issue nose and tongue.

This Batch

All the agave used in this batch grew on Lalo’s land, was planted, tended to, capón-ed and finally harvested by Lalo and his team.

Like everything at Palenque La Candelaria, the agaves were roasted underground, mashed by hand, fermented naturally, and distilled in clay pots. When the resulting destilado had been captured and cooled down for a few days, Dani got to work.

“I tasted the cuerpo (hearts) and realized it didn’t have much alcohol, that is, it wasn’t so strong… and the flavor profile that espadín con quiote should have, wasn’t present,” Dani said. Probably, during the distillation process, the cuts to separate the cuerpo from the colas (tails) happened too late, meaning the containers of cuerpos already had some colas in them. Based on the starting point she was given, she decided only to adjust the cuerpos by adding puntas (heads) - no need for more colas than what had already worked their way into the batch - raising the ABV to 49%. The added alcohol heightened the intensity while also accentuating the mellow notes that should be present in a batch made from espadín con quiote.

“The work of composing and adjusting mezcales is basically one decision after another. Like everything in the artistic world, a creative process also involves a decision making process of accepting and discarding, and moving and removing."

You can hear Dani talk more about this batch and her creative process in the video below.

And you can learn more about capón agaves and Lalo’s take on Espadín con quiote HERE.