Agave Road Trip

When you’re a vegan but you find yourself in a situation where someone has cooked a whole goat in your honor, do you eat the goat? When Marissa and I start talking rural Mexico, you can never be sure where the conversation will go. This time, it went to the conflict between our dietary restrictions and the diets of Mexico. Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps...

Traveling the hard way to visit mezcaleres who make agave spirits the hard way seemed right to me. So I grabbed my cyclist friend Zach Jarosz and we set off from Oaxaca Centro on an Agave Bike Trip! Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special g...

Slippery language can lead to misunderstandings. When a brand owner talks about their distillery, their agaves, their producers … maybe they’re just being sloppy. Maybe their claiming ownership. But what’s the impact of those claims? Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode i...

Most spirits don’t have lot numbers … or lote numbers … or batch numbers. But some (a lot?) do. And what exactly do those numbers mean? Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot. Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest evolutionary biologist Daniel...

Scotland is known for Scotch whiskey. Louisville for Bourbon. But award-winning bartenders have opened agave-focused drinking halls in both places. What does it mean when Mezcal finds its way into whisk(e)y country? Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Ba...

Not an episode about agave, agave spirits, or rural Mexico! For this special Christmas episode of Agave Road Trip I offer you the gift of Chuck Cowdery, the “dean of American whiskey writing,” according to the New York Times . When did he have his first drink? When did he have his first whiskey? For whom did he make his first cocktail? All that and more! Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed,...

This new ad for Cadbury’s Bournville “dark” chocolate is funny. But there’s a cost to that humor, and it isn’t to Cadbury. We take Goliath to task for attacking David in this episode of Agave Road Trip! Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank and Bruce...

There’s a field of blue weber agave in Jalisco that SACRED has purchased. The plan is … well, a secret. But there’s a possible glitch in the secret plan and that glitch is the picudo, a weevil famous for eating agave. Are we going to let a famous weevil interrupt our plan? No — we’re going to bug out! Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders bet...

There’s a restaurant that opened in Queens, New York, a couple months ago with the name Whitexicans . That’s a loaded word – loaded with enough implications of classism and racism that it sparked a protest . But it also sparked a lot of media coverage . So what does it mean that your place of hospitality has an inhospitable name? Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast tha...

There have been so many things for which to be grateful this year. But, oftentimes, I find myself dwelling on the heartaches and regrets of the year. So Linda and I got together to talk about the great moments, to share on Thanksgiving. And we talk about how to help create more great moments before the year ends. Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx ba...

In the past decade, housing prices in Mexico City have climbed 148%, fueled largely by digital nomads and a tourism boom. More than 26,000 AirBnB units have taken over what would have been apartments for people for whom Mexico City is home. This past summer, that led to protests in the streets: “shattered glass, broken doors and furious graffiti,” according to a story in The Guardian . In our enth...

If you’re a business owner who makes their living serving food or drinks that are rooted in Mexican traditions, or a brand owner who is selling spirits made in Mexico or, perhaps, made somewhere else but rooted in Mexican tradition, what are your obligations — if any — to the people who come from Mexico? Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders...

First I heard from Sergio Garnier that the wild lamparillos on his 24,000-acre ranch in Durango skipped a season. Didn’t shoot quiotes. Didn’t go to flower. Then I heard the same about the agaves in Guerrero from Damian Meneses from El Tigre . And Damian and I were in Jalisco together and he told me that the raicilleros were saying the same thing: none or almost none of the agaves are going to see...

There’s a lot of talk about ensuring that the mezcaleres get paid fairly, and that’s an important conversation. There’s less talk about the palenqueres getting paid fairly, and that’s also an important conversation that we should be having more often. But there’s zero talk about ensuring the people who own Mezcal brands get paid fairly. So … let’s talk. Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, a...

I see so many agave enthusiasts visiting Mexico and not checking luggage. And Alvin Starkman , who guides visitors to Oaxaca’s palenques, sees even more. People … what are you doing? Alvin and I attempt to make the case to bring the case. Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This epis...

According to the Comercam, production of Mezcal dropped in 2024. It went from 14.2 million liters in 2022 down to 12.2 million liters in 2023 and, last year, down again to 11.4 million liters. So how does Mezcal find new drinking buddies? Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This epis...

The US State Department has changed their safety ratings for Mexico. The only places in the country where, according to the US State Department, you can just go as freely as you might to, say, Washington, DC, would be Campeche and Yucatan. Everywhere else in Mexico it’s suggested that you should “exercise increased caution.” Some places I love to go, like Jalisco, Baja California, Chiapas, and Que...

Months ago COMERCAM released the 2024 numbers for Mezcal. But I just finally got around to looking at them. What do they reveal? To me, a lot of questions about the integrity of the numbers! Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest Sha...

The technology most of us carry in our pockets allows us to take such good pictures that we often don’t recognize we’re not taking great pictures. Professional photographer Anna Bruce shares her tips and tricks to help you up your documentation game! Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexic...

There was sort of mini-boycott of agave syrup among bartenders about a decade ago, fueled by the industrial product contributing to Jalisco’s monoculture of blue weber agave. Or maybe fueled by a feeling that agave should only be used to make spirits – I’m still not 100% clear on that. And then there was the rise of the “new” agave syrup, which is really the original agave syrup, which is made in...

Willy Chavarria and Adidas went to China and made "Oaxaca Slip-Ons.” Was it an opportunity to benefit the communities in Mexico who make huaraches? Or was it a multi-cultural slip-up? Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest Fabiola Sa...

“That song makes me not want some mo G4.” That reaction to the music video “Sippin’ on Some G4” by Jeff Hodges and Los Henchmen, while nothing like the majority of commenters, was also not uncommon. Which is interesting, right? Because absolutely nothing changed about the Tequila in the G4 bottle. So … why would anyone stop drinking something they like because of a music video they don’t like? Aga...

The impact that a bartender can have on the consumption patterns within a bar is huge. Does great responsibility come with that great power? And if so, what exactly does that responsibility look like? Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special...

There was this video that my friends at Zignum released years ago that suggested that traditional Mezcal was not clean. That was contrasted recently in a conversation I had with master tequilero Felipe Camarena , who suggested that county water with all its chlorine and other chemicals wasn’t clean. And then maestro mezcalero Eduardo Angeles has a further take on what “clean” means. So what exactl...

I’ve met at least a dozen mezcalerxs who no longer drink, but continue to make Mezcal. How do they do that, and still make delicious spirits? And what can bartenders and chefs take from this? Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest Li...