PUNTIAGUDO RA-BAC-01, Barril Chino – 750ml

From Santa Catarina Minas, Oaxaca — Our friend and Maestro Mezcalero Rolando Ángeles Cruz continues the tradition passed down to him by his father Marcos Angeles.

The story of this batch begins in San Agustín Amatengo, where Don Sixto and his sons harvested 955 kilograms of Agave karwinskii — known locally as Barril Chino — in April 2021. For those unfamiliar with this striking agave, Barril Chino grows tall and almost tree-like, thriving semi-wild among native flora rather than in cultivated rows. It’s a patient plant: over twelve years spent stretching skyward under the region’s fierce sun before it’s ever ready to meet a coa.

Once harvested, the agave hearts made the hour-long journey to Santa Catarina Minas, where they were roasted for five days in a traditional conical earthen oven fueled with Guamuchil and Copal wood. From there, the cooked piñas were hand-cut with machete and crushed using wooden mallets weighing over 50 pounds — laborious, deliberate work that stretched on for more than eight hours. The crushed agave was then left to ferment naturally for six days in 1,000-liter oak vats, coaxed to life by nothing more than well water and the wild yeasts native to the palenque. By mid-May 2021, the spirit was distilled twice in a 100-liter clay pot still — the signature method that has defined Santa Catarina Minas mezcal for generations.

An Accident That Became the Story

This whole batch was set to age in glass before bottling — our choice that lets our spirits soften and deepen without ever touching wood. The still yielded around 88 liters, which we carefully placed in glass garrafones to begin that rest.

But during warehouse organizing activities in 2025, one of the garrafones was accidentally broken. In an instant, part of this hard-won harvest — years of agave growth, rest, and many hours of production — was lost.

What remained was just 67 liters.

Rather than diminishing this batch, that accident is what makes it rare. What’s in this bottle isn’t just years of aging — it’s what was left standing after the unpredictability of artisanal production had its say.

The mezcal which was finally bottled on June 22, 2026, at 49.1% ABV is outstanding.