Brady Bunte Mezcaleros

Mezcal production has roughly doubled since 2011, adding pressure in many new ways to what has long been an informal, almost moonshine, business. Though the shift has opened financial opportunities for some of Mexico's poorest regions, the legacy of informality has left certain elements exposed, most vitally the future of agave.

The success of the tequila industry to the north in Jalisco poses a cautionary tale for many mezcaleros. Formally, tequila is a subset of mezcal made only of blue agave but it has grown its own separate branding equally as the fuel for frat parties and as an ultimate luxury. In that transition over time, the rich historical legacy has been squeezed into an often acerbic industrial standard, with massive fortunes concentrated in the hands of a few and with hundreds of planted hectares reduced to a single strain of genetically identical clones.