5 Sentidos Espadin Capon - Alberto Martinez

52.5% ABV

Espadin Capon from the village of Santa Catarina Albarradas in Oaxaca from Maestro Alberto Martinez. Technically an Ensamble as he also included a handful of Sierra Negra (Agave Americana) in the batch. The Espadin were left to sit in the field Capon for about 1 year prior to harvesting. The agaves were pit roasted with Encino oak and mashed by hand with wooden mallets. The mash was fermented with spring water and tepehuaje tree bark in underground concrete-lined tanks for 5 days. The tree bark contains enzymes which help spur the fermentation. Finally it was double distilled in clay pots.

The tepehuaje gives the mezcal a woodsy edge which is a marker of all of his mezcales. There is a bit of a lactic edge, mellow smoke, and sweet agave fruit. 

A Note About Capon Mezcales:
"Capon" (Kah-pone) describes the process of cutting the flowering stalk of an agave and leaving it in the ground for a period of time. Normally when an agave is fully mature, it begins the flowering process and concentrates all of it's energy (in the form of future fermentable sugars) to sending up a quiote ("Kee-Oh-Tay" or stalk) which will flower and spread its seeds. Once the quiote has fully grown, all of the fermentable sugars are gone from the piña or heart of the agave, rendering it useless for mezcal production. With Capon, you arrest that process right at the beginning, essentially castrating the plant, and the sugars remain in the piña, concentrating and evolving. The agave will develop some secondary flavor characteristics during this process as well.