Clay Pot Mezcal Distillation in Oaxaca: Resourcefulness, Ingenuity & Sustainability

Alvin Starkman, M.A., J.D. 

                            Palenque in Pueblo Viejo, Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca

​The start-up costs of building a traditional, artisanal mezcal distillery (palenque) in Oaxaca are significant, the most costly out-of-pocket expense being purchase of the copper still (alembic). But once that expenditure has been made, the brick and cement outer buildings erected and the limestone wheel (tahona) purchased, there’s little maintenance. In fact often the copper need not be repaired or replaced for a quarter century, depending on mainly usage and water source. By contrast, building a clay pot (olla de barro) mezcal distillation facility involves relatively little initial cash outlay. However the ongoing upkeep expenses have the potential to be significant and out of reach for many of these hard-working men and women (palenqueros) of modest means … but for their resourcefulness, ingenuity and sustainable practices. 

                Palenque of Angélica García, in San Baltazar Chichicapam, Oaxaca

Most of the clay pots utilized in ancestral (and artisanal) mezcal production in and around the central valleys of Oaxaca are produced in the town of Santa María Atzompa.  They are made with locally sourced clay, water and fire, and thus their cost is fairly modest, perhaps 800 pesos for the two receptacles required to make one still.  Contrast this with some 80,000 pesos for a 300 liter copper alembic. 

         The old palenque of Felix Ángeles Arellanes, Santa Catarina Minas, Oaxaca

Some of the following comments are applicable in the more traditional processes employed in making mezcal in Oaxaca, using copper as opposed to clay. But the thrust of this article relates to distillation using ollas de barro. 

                                                      Sola de Vega, Oaxaca, 2012

The housing which encases the bottom clay pot is made from locally produced clay and/or adobe bricks and mud, and nothing more. The adobe is typically made by mixing sand, mud, perhaps donkey, sheep, cow and/or horse excrement, and waste agave fiber (bagazo) discarded after the first distillation. 

                             Adobe bricks drying in the sun, made with bagazo

Those bagazo-charged adobe bricks are also used in home construction. In earlier times they were considered a building material for the poor, but now are highly coveted both for their aesthetics and insulating properties. Bagazo is also used as compost, mulch, separating the agave hearts (piñas) from the in-ground oven’s hot rocks, manufacturing small biodegradable planters, and even in making paper for a multiplicity of applications including mezcal bottle labels. 

     Planters made with bagazo. When the roots get too big, place planter in the ground. 

The wood used both to bake, and to distill, is obtained at a discount. Nice big straight logs fetch a lumberyard-premium. For baking agave, crooked and otherwise malformed tree trunks can be employed. For distillation, often palenqueros work out a deal with a lumberyard to purchase its discards from log de-barking.  While the objective is to shave off only the outer part of the log, there’s always good wood attached. And so this “waste” is sought by many palenqueros thereby enabling them to economize when it comes to the cost of firewood for fueling stills.  
 
Clay pots last anywhere from a couple of weeks to typically not more than a year and a half, after which time they must be replaced.  It’s that bottom pot, as opposed to the upper clay cylinder, which presents the more significant problem; once it cracks or breaks, the housing must be disassembled, the pot removed, a new one inserted, and the encasement re-built. The life of that bottom olla is extended by using not a metal pitch fork to remove the bagazo, but rather a tree branch in the shape of a fork, its prongs sometimes joined with rope or wire. 

                                   Dis-assembling still to remove cracked clay pot

But clay pots are inevitably rendered unusable for their initial purpose through breakage and cracking.  When even the smallest crack is exposed, the fermented liquid (or the subsequent single distillate) will slowly seep out.  The damaged pots (as well as the upper chamber clay cylinders) are frequently used as planters. 

                           Damaged upper clay cylinder being used as a planter

But that bottom discarded pot has a more important use, that is, in the fermentation process. Most baked crushed agave is fermented in pine or wooden slat vats (i.e. pine or oak) with capacity of usually 700 – 1,000 liters. But some palenqueros ferment in clay pots, typically partially embedded in the ground. After a damaged pot has been removed from the still housing, it can be simply repaired with cement and used for fermenting; a repaired pot generally cannot be used for distillation anew.  And so while a cracked or broken olla de barro is not reusable for its original reason for purchase, it gets a new life.

            Fermenting in cement-repaired clay pots in San Bernardo Mixtepec, Oaxaca

​Similarly, an old wooden fermentation vat can be converted. A couple of years ago I purchased one such vessel from palenquero Lucio Morales of San Dionisio Ocotepec. With the assistance of a carpenter friend it was cut down to a large coffee table, with 9 mm glass top, and the “waste” slats were made into slabs for holding mezcal cups for serving flights of mezcal. 

                   Made from an old fermentation vat, for serving flights of mezcal

In order for clay pot distillation to work, a continuous flow of cool-ish water is required. It often arrives along a makeshift wooden trough, falling into the small conical condenser through a length of giant river reed (carrizo). Carrizo is an invasive wild vegetation with multiple uses, including in the olla de barro distillation process. In addition to the foregoing use, it is sometimes employed to guide the water out of the condenser, and the distillate out of the still into a holding receptacle.  The receptacle is sometimes a different type of clay pot known as a cántaro, produced in a different village (San Bartolo Coyotepec) and made from a rather unique clay. And yet another use for the reed is as a bellows to stoke the flame under the olla de barro during distillation. 

                                   Vintage cántaro made in San Bartolo Coyotepec

Long ago palenqueros used clay condensers in the distillation process. When metal became available, they switched. While they used to employ simple laminated metal, more recently most have changed to stainless steel or copper. Some palenqueros have adapted old aluminum construction worker hardhats. The shape is about the same, and with a little work they are close to as efficient as those made with other metals. When in or about 2012 I first visited the palenque of Sola de Vega’s Tio Rey of Mezcal Vago notoriety, he had been using hard hats as condensers!  Now many readers know the quality of this palenquero’s mezcal. 

                    Hardhats converted to condensers in Sola de Vega, Oaxaca

Steam rises, hits the condenser, then the drops of liquid must fall onto something which then guides the liquid to the exterior of the cylinder, through yes that different piece of carrizo, and down into the container. That something is typically a hand-hewn wooden spoon, or a small length of agave leaf (penca). And, the condenser is sealed to the upper cylinder, which is sealed to the lower olla de barro, in both cases not with glue but rather the paste/cap which naturally forms on the top of the fermentation vessel. 

       Hand-hewn wooden spoon in clay upper chamber, to catch the condensed liquid

Several decades ago, here in Oaxaca a vibrant industry existed of extracting the fiber from the agave pencas, drying it, and spinning into rope, grain sacks, clothing and umpteen other consumer products. While the industry continues in the Yucatán peninsula, in Oaxaca the pencas today have a different use not only for palenqueros and their families, but for entire communities the members of which do not even distill.
 
Pencas are typically left on the ground once cut off the agave piña which is then ready for transport to the palenque. After they are partially dried and not as heavy, they are transported to residents’ homes, and used as firewood; to cook tortillas, grills meats, prepare hot chocolate and other beverages, and even as fuel in open air kilns for making terra cotta pottery. The pencas can of course also be mulched. 

There are several ways that piñas are moved from field to palenque, most typically in a truck or on the backs of mules and donkeys. But they are also transported in wagons pulled by a team of oxen. Oxen are therefore not only used for plowing, but are also employed in the mezcal industry. They are even used to pull the tahona in the agave-crushing stage. If you already have a team for plowing, why not use it for crushing agave rather than purchase different beasts of burden? And they produce much more excrement than donkeys.  Their waste can and in fact is used as fertilizer for growing more agave. 

When the still is not in use, many palenqueros prefer keeping the opening underneath, into which firewood is placed to produce flame, closed off. Some distillers don’t want young children playing hide-and-seek in the sooty and sometimes still hot orifice. Others don’t want their chickens laying eggs inside. Maestro Felix Ángeles Arellanes of Santa Catarina Minas, keeps the opening closed using old metal plow discs.
 
At the outset I noted the modest start-up costs for establishing a palenque for olla de barro distillation, and touched upon the cost of the clay pots. Additional installations in both clay and copper operations which are pretty well free of out-of-pocket costs in fact require only labor, include excavating the pit in the ground for baking, the ability to crush by hand using a wooden mallet and nothing more, and fermenting in an animal hide or a lined hole in the earth or directly in a bedrock cavity.
​
It’s the innate creativity of the palenquero distilling in clay, which is remarkable, somewhat more so than is the case with those distilling in copper.  Regardless, and one can argue that those employing alembics are just as if not more creative, the foregoing are but a few examples of the resourcefulness of the palenquero and others in and around the broader mezcal industry.
 
The last decade has witnessed significant change in the wind. And while we must admire the ingenuity, maintenance of sustainable practices, and the rest, it’s crucial that we not begrudge the palenquero for making small technological advancements with a view to making life just a little easier as his economic lot in life improves. The romanticism we cherish in traditional mezcal production will inevitably wane, but hopefully only to a limited extent.
 
Alvin Starkman operates Mezcal Educational Excursions of Oaxaca (www.mezcaleducationaltours.com).