Thursday, October 22, 2015
The Myth of Mezcal SF Weekly (blog) After finishing a degree in industrial engineering, he worked with a nonprofit that had a campus in Oaxaca. It was then the Mexico City native started to ...
The Myth of Mezcal
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After finishing a degree in industrial engineering, he worked with a nonprofit that had a campus in Oaxaca. It was then the Mexico City native started to ...
"The dark eras are for transforming, no?" Santiago Suarez says. We're in a third-floor room of Anchor Brewing, comparing San Francisco's boom with Mexico City's struggles. Suarez is the founder and CEO of the six-year-old Mezcal Amores — Mezcal Amarás in the U.S. — and he is constantly traveling, evangelizing on behalf of mezcal's mystery.
"The first time I contacted mezcal was on a hippie beach in Mexico," Suarez recounts. "I was 18 years old, and the moment was perfect."
An older man, 60 or 65, was carrying bottles as he walked across the sand. He approached Suarez and his friends and made them an offer: 50 cents for a liter of the white spirit, a dollar if they wanted the glass bottle. Suarez held out an empty plastic bottle, and the man filled it with mezcal.
"We couldn't go into the ocean that day, so we started drinking the mezcal. It was one of the best drinks I'd ever had," says Suarez. Later, he and his friends went looking for the man. "We wanted to buy more, but we couldn't find him. He was like a myth."
The encounter stuck with Suarez. After finishing a degree in industrial engineering, he worked with a nonprofit that had a campus in Oaxaca. It was then the Mexico City native started to notice the cultural differences between regions.
"A really important part of the community was mezcal," he tells me, describing the role of the spirit in the celebration of birthdays, quinceañeras, the Day of the Dead, and other festivals. "It was a part of those special days, and I got to know it."
Suarez spent two years learning about the spirit's history and production, and launched Mezcal Amores on Dec. 12, 2010, during the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Over time, the brand has expanded, growing horizontally rather than vertically — a distinction that Suarez insists on. While a single factory can produce anywhere from 1,000-4,000 liters, it isn't possible to use the traditional process on a grand scale.
"And if we lose the way it's produced, we lose a lot of this product," says Suarez.
While Mezcal Amores exhibits a particular flavor, process, and expression of terroir, it varies from bottle to bottle and from one mezcalero to the next. To select his partnering mezcaleros — currently there are 11 — Suarez has visited more than 200 factories throughout Mexico, some of which are dirt-floor, thatch-roof facilities run by mezcaleros who have hundreds of years of collective experience. Of the four mezcaleros who contribute to Amores' Espaín variety, three have been in the industry for more than six decades. One recently turned 93.
Making mezcal is labor-intensive and requires patience, as plants can take up to 35 years to mature. Once ready to reproduce, their leaves begin to open and the agave shoots up, growing more than 60 feet in six to nine months.
"The plant takes its whole life to survive and reproduces only once before it dies," Suarez explains. "If you think about it, you're drinking all of the energy that the plant has stored up. The plant is sacrificing its life for us, and not doing what living things want to do, which is reproduce."
Once cut, the agave's core (or piña) is extracted, cut into pieces, and cooked for up to five days over a fire made in a conical in-ground oven lined with stone. It's then sliced and ground into meal, to oxygenate it. The resulting liquid is fermented for eight to 25 days, slow-cooked, and distilled in batches of less than 400 liters. (Every ton of agave yields roughly 100 liters of mezcal.)
"Each time you do this you can't reproduce it," says Suarez. "It's very organic, unique."
Each mezcalero works according to his own specifications. There can be variations on the type of wood burned in the oven, the type of fermentation pots, and the amount of time spent in any stage. And then there is the agave itself, with 23 species and 350 subspecies. It's a wonder that one bottle of mezcal even resembles the next.
"It's a mystery we're still figuring out," Suarez says. "There is no cultivation of wild agave. That's why we don't harvest wild plants if we don't have a reforestation plan. Each year, we plant 10 to 15 for each plant we use."
Mezcal Amarás' espadin, a balance of smoke and agave flavor, is what Suarez considers "the perfect way to enter the mezcal world." It is "centered, but not explosive." On the other side is cupreata, developed in Guerrero state. Where espadín is a point of entry, cupreata shows mezcal's complexity. "We wanted to show the extremes of what it can do," says Suarez. "[Cupreata] can be spicy like chili or bell pepper. Think of the flavor green," he says, as I take small sips. It does, indeed, taste like a deep jungle green, lush and herbaceous.
When Mezcal Amores decided to distribute in the U.S. under the name of Mezcal Amarás, it did so with the desire to keep the mezcal tradition, moving when the moment was right. Though mezcal only makes up 1 percent of tequila sales, the age-old drink is quickly growing in popularity. As it does, it is important to Suarez that it is consumed responsibly and carefully: "We should honor it by drinking in celebration with friends, respecting the life of the plant."
"For me, the best way to enjoy a mezcal is sipping it," Suarez says. "You never shoot a mezcal; you should kiss the glass. If you feel like you're swallowing, you're doing it wrong." To him, a good shot should last 20 to 30 minutes. "You're taking a journey through the soul of the plant," he tells me, "Tasting the biodiversity of Mexico."
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Call Me Maybe - Throwback Thursday Just For Laughs Gags Just For Laughs Gags
Call Me Maybe - Throwback Thursday
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Sam Hunt - Take Your Time (Tyler & Ryan Cover) DirtyTAR
Sam Hunt - Take Your Time (Tyler & Ryan Cover)
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The One Thing You Should Never Do With Your Boarding Pass October 19, 2015 6:49 pm by Jamie Ditaranto
The One Thing You Should Never Do With Your Boarding Pass
You're at the gate. You've got your boarding pass. You're heading somewhere exciting and you just can't wait until you get there to share the news with your friends on social media. So you snap a picture of your boarding pass and post it to Facebook. Harmless, right?
Maybe not.
Because the information printed on your boarding pass actually reveals a lot more than you think.
As explained via a recent blog post by KrebsonSecurity, there are websites that can read the barcodes on your boarding pass and provide someone else access to your travel information—your phone number, frequent flyer number, and information not only about the flight in question but also all future flights booked through the same number.
With access to your boarding pass, someone could even change your seat on the plane, cancel any future flights, and reset your account PIN number.
You may love your friends, but would you trust everyone you know on Facebook or Twitter with your private travel information? Didn't think so.
The takeaway here: Don't post pictures of your boarding pass on social media.
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Tuesday, October 20, 2015
HIERVE EL AGUA TOUR A OAXACA EN ESPAÑOL PARTE 1 EXCURSIONES TURISTICAS DE VALFRED EXCURSIONES TURISTICAS DE VALFRED
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Travel Tips: How to do laundry while traveling Gabriel Traveler
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Heavy rains cut access to 25 communities 3 states affected by heavy rainfall, and there's more coming
Heavy rains cut access to 25 communities
3 states affected by heavy rainfall, and there's more coming
Mexico News Daily | Monday, October 19, 2015
Heavy rains are wreaking havoc in Veracruz, Quintana Roo and Chiapas, where communities have been cut off and some families evacuated due to damage caused by flooding and mudslides.
About 62 people have taken refuge in shelters as at least five rivers are threatening to overflow.Mudslides have cut off access to 25 municipalities in Veracruz and left damages in 19 others, according to the state’s Civil Protection office. The Amozoc-Nautla highway has been closed in Atzalan.
One man is dead after being swept away by a river near Santiago Tuxtla after he attempted to save another man, reportedly inebriated, who had fallen in the water. The latter individual was saved.
Governor Javier Duarte said on Twitter all schools at all levels have been closed.
Twenty-five families in the Chiapas municipality of Ixhuatán were evacuated after their homes were damaged by a mudslide, while 10 people had to leave their homes in Reforma because of flooding.
Twenty-three municipalities in the north of the state have seen the heaviest of the rain.
In Quintana Roo, the mayor of Chetumal reports 400 millimeters of rain has fallen in three days, what normally would be seen over three months. Eduardo Espinosa Abuxapqui said there is widespread flooding in the city, with floodwater reaching heights of 90 centimeters.
He said the municipality has no funds for carrying out repairs and is relying on emergency and disaster funding from the federal government.
The state has declared an emergency in the municipalities of Benito Juárez, Solidaridad, Cozumel, Isla Mujeres, Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Bacalar and Othón P. Blanco.
More heavy rain — from intense to torrential — is forecast for parts of Oaxaca, Puebla, Chiapas, Tabasco and Veracruz due to a low-pressure system in the Gulf of Tehuantepec.
Pichucalco-Tectuapan highway in Chiapas. Courtesy Rafael Camargo,
teleSUR English Tropical Threat Heightens Risk for Flooding and Mudslides in Mexico, Central America AccuWeather.com Many locations from southeast Mexico to Belize and Guatemala have already received more than 100 mm (4 inches) of rain including Puerto Angel, ...
Tropical Threat Heightens Risk for Flooding and Mudslides in Mexico, Central America
Many locations from southeast Mexico to Belize and Guatemala have already received more than 100 mm (4 inches) of rain including Puerto Angel, ...
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A tropical low currently drifting westward to the south of Mexico and west of Central America is expected to develop into a named tropical system in the next 24 hours.
The combination of moving over warm ocean waters and into an area of lower wind shear will allow the tropical low to further organize.
In the meantime, showers and thunderstorms will be widespread from northwest Nicaragua through western Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Belize through Tuesday.
On Wednesday the threat for flash flooding will centered from from Guatemala into southeast Mexico.
While not all areas will experience heavy rainfall, the entire region is at risk for rainfall rates 50 mm (2 inches) or greater per hour at times resulting in an elevated risk for flash flooding.
San Jose, Guatemala reported more than 375 mm (15 inches) of rain since Sunday. Many locations from southeast Mexico to Belize and Guatemala have already received more than 100 mm (4 inches) of rain including Puerto Angel, Coatzacoalcos, Chetumal, Tuxtla Gutierrez and Guatemala City.
As the tropical low moves west-northwest development into a tropical storm is expected and the name Patricia would be given at that time.
Heavy rain will be a serious concern near and along the southern Mexico coastline from Tapachula to Lazaro Cardenas. Downpours could reach as far north as Manzanillo by Thursday or Friday.
Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara are also at risk for flooding downpours late this week as the tropical system approaches the coast between Colola and Puerto Vallarta.
A westward track of this potential tropical system will allow rainfall to diminish from El Salvador and Honduras into Nicaragua as the week progresses.
RELATED:
Central America Weather Center
Detailed Forecast for Guatemala City
AccuWeather East Pacific Hurricane Center
Central America Weather Center
Detailed Forecast for Guatemala City
AccuWeather East Pacific Hurricane Center
An eventual landfall or at the very least a surge of tropical moisture into south-central and central Mexico is expected late this week and into the weekend bringing an elevated risk for flash flooding and mudslides to the region.
While Mexico City may miss the heaviest rainfall, daily thunderstorms are possible through this weekend with downpours capable of producing localized flash flooding.
As this moisture and potential tropical system are pulled northward, the unsettled weather could help fuel the development of a tropical system in the western Gulf of Mexico and will also bring the threat for heavy rainfall and flooding to parts of Texas and the Gulf Coast.
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