This is Sin Gusano’s first bottling from the state of Durango, in collaboration with Ultramundo.
The Mapimí Silent Zone (Zona del Silencio) is a patch of desert in the north of Durango, close to the border with Coahuila, that overlaps with the Mapimí Biosphere Reserve.
On a 20,000-acre ranch in the middle of the Zona del Silencio desert, this maguey lamparillo (Agave asperrima) grows wild and free.
After consultation with biologists and conservationists, it has agreed that a minimum of 20% of each year’s mature agave will be left to flower.
In this way, the vast resource of wild agave will be self-replenishing, and its use for spirits production will not have a detrimental effect on the wider ecology of the region.
Carried out of the desert on horseback before being transferred by truck to Nombre de Dios, the agave are then processed in the Durango heritage style: cooked in an earthen oven before being mashed with an axe, fermented in small, wood-lined wells and ultimately double-distilled in the unique Durango hybrid style.
Lamparillo (Zona Del Silencio) is immediately unusual on the nose for even the hardened mezcal aficionado.
Big notes of spicy green peppers like jalapeño are really vegetal, but in a dusty, sweet and sour way that sets it apart from the vegetal tones you might expect from a tepextate, for example.
The complex yet balanced flavours follow through on the palate with notes of olive and pepper and a background of leather, all the while extremely restrained on the smoke. It’s unusual and incredibly moreish. The result of the desert experiment are an absolute winner for the taste buds.
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