This is the first in a mini-series of three about agave spirits and the people who make them.
(The WiFi wasn’t great, so sound quality is a little echoey at times and there’s the occasional pause in dialogue when Zoom froze, but that’s how it goes when you’re a 4-hour drive from Oaxaca!)
It was great to catch up with Dani, who I first met when she was bartending in Vancouver, part of the first wave of mixology in Canada back around 2008.
She moved down to start ecolodge Acre in Cabo San Lucas, and when my wife Elayne and I were invited down to Cabo to give some seminars, I suggested she and her professional colleague Osvaldo Vasquez at the Chileno Bay resort start a cocktail festival, and she and Osvaldo went on to found CCF (Cabo Cocktail Festival).
When I was down there next year at CCF, Dani was already selecting mezcals to have a house brand at Acre, and five or six years ago she left Acre and CCF and moved to Zipolite, near Oaxaca, to found Mezcal Gotagorda and a mezcaleria.
Dani seeks out small batches of unusual mezcals and "destilado de agave" (unregistered mezcal, basically) in runs of as little as 42 liters , bottles them under the brand name Gotagorda and sells them, from her mezcaleria, locally, also shipping throughout Mexico and (soon) abroad.
Over a wee mezcal we chatted about how brands can work sustainably with mezcal producers, what you should pay for a bottle of mezcal, the regulations for glass-aged madurado mezcal, harvesting agave at night on her birthday and what it's like working in rural Mexico and educating her customers.
Enjoy!
Danielle on IG: https://www.instagram.com/danifish/?hl=en
Gotagorda on IG: https://www.instagram.com/mezcalgotagorda/?hl=es
Mezcal and Destilados Gotagorda info & shop: https://destiladosgotagorda.myshopify.com/
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