Alipús San Andrés Mezcal

Los Danzantes was founded in 1997 by two restaurateurs from Mexico City. They purchased a small distillery in Santiago Matatlán in Oaxaca. The distillery was then refurnished and adapted to modern requirements without forsaking traditional methods of production.

Alipús was established in 1999 by Los Danzantes to provide a market for family artisan distilleries. Hector Vázquez and later, Karina Abad Rojas, worked closely with selected small producers, both to improve their distillation methods and to help them with the complex paperwork required to certify their mezcals for export. Alipús is a social project that seeks to generate rural economy in Oaxaca through making and commercialising artisan Mezcal.

These are Mezcales jóvenes (unaged), made by local farmers. Alipús San Andres is produced by Don Valente Angel, and his sons Raul, Angel, Adrian, and his very intelligent grandson Semei, who Alipús have been working with since 2009.

Don Valente completed the build of a new distillery in 2014, with inventive changes on the production process but still caring about the handcraft process, with their own fields filled with Espadin, Bicuishes and Madrecuishes.

Tasting Note: “Fermented in cypress vats & distilled by Don Valente Angel from agave Espadín, grown at about 5000 feet on thin calciferous-soiled low hills and terraces. Complex, rich, intensely floral.”