We covered the basics on puntas back in Vol. 4. You can read about them there if you’d like a primer on what that means.

When visiting mezcaleros in Guerrero, we typically drive our truck to the capitol city of Chilpancingo, where we rent a second, smaller, more discreet (shittier) car to visit the communities where mezcal is found and law is not. The less attention we draw to ourselves and the people we’re visiting, the safer it is for all of us. That’s the upside. One of the downsides is that it takes 4 or 5 trips in a 2003 Nissan Sentra with no suspension to bring down enough mezcal to fill the back of a giant Suburban. Rather than spending a couple of days making the 4+ hour roundtrip several times, Javier often delivers a truckload of mezcal to us in the city, so that we can spend more time at the fabricas rather than ferrying mezcal around the whole time.

On our most recent trip to Guerrero, we arrived in Chilpancingo the day before Mexico’s Independence Day, and found that much the city’s downtown blocked off in preparation for the weekend’s festivities, and the police had temporarily banned alcohol sales in the neighborhood, hoping to keep the party from getting started before everything was set up.

We rendezvoused with Javier and his friend Pinky (so named by Javier for his resemblance to the cartoon mouse in Pinky and The Brain) in a supermarket parking lot. Under the jealous gaze of sober locals, we transferred a bunch of 50 liter ánforas of mezcal from Javier’s truck to our own, taking the opportunity to sample the wares, including a Multiensamble de 6 Magueyes that we’d been looking forward to since Javier began harvesting the desconocidos back in May. Everything was great, as expected. Javier and Pinky, eager to finish the drive home before sunset, hit the road, and we went to claim our burner car.

That night, we would go in search of food and cold beers, winding up at a restaurant on the outskirts of the city center, where we were told the only way to get a table for dinner was to buy a bottle of 38% ABV Don Julio Reposado, which was brought to our table with sparklers and fanfare while we ate cheeseburgers, but that’s another story.

The next morning, we arrived at Javier’s fabrica, where we hung out with his family and talked about all the things that are more pleasant in person than over Whatsapp. As a surprise, he pulled out a jug with 20-something liters of puntas reserved from the multiensamble. Maybe anything would have tasted great compared to the previous night’s offerings, but we were blown away. At 75.1% ABV, it’s as loud as it is sharp. The mezcal equivalent of the Maxell Tape ad with the dude getting his hair blown back by Flight of The Valkyries.

The Agaves

The magueyes used to make this batch are notable for a couple of reasons. First, the use of magueyes desconocidos - plants that are rare enough in the region that mezcaleros haven’t bothered to give them names. Our best guess is that these are all different varietals of A. americana. Second, while the agaves were all roasted, mashed, fermented and distilled together, they were harvested from a several different locations:

Papalote – La Mohonera, Santa Catarina

Zacatoro - Zompazolco

Espadín – La Mohonera

Desconocidos – Santa Cruz, Nejapa

La Mohonera, Santa Cruz and Nejapa are all very close to Javier’s fabrica. Santa Catarina and Zompazolco are a few hours to the north on some poorly maintained dirt roads.