Machee Mezcal Verdito

Pine, menthol, and thyme on the nose lead into spiced fruit, roasted tubers, and toasted nuts, with a metallic minerality and a lingering bitter-herb edge. Bold, oily, and high-proof.

Verdito is a karwinskii-rhodacantha hybrid from Guixe, Miahuatlán, ten to twelve years to maturity, and its genetics show plainly in the spirit's herbal intensity. Maestro Leo García makes it at Palenque Guixe in the Sierra Sur, roasting in a pit oven, milling by tahona, and distilling in a copper refrescadera still. Macheé means loyalty in Zapotec.