elements table
tasting notes
Maestro Mezcalero
Don Chinto
Jacinto "Chinto" Garcia Muñoz is a fourth generation mezcalero from Puebla, Mexico. Just like his forefathers, Chinto uses ancestral elaboration methods such as fermenting in bull hide vessels, hand milling cooked agave with wooden mallets and distilling in a Filipino style still that features a Coral tree trunk.
He began making mezcal at the age of 14 and utilizes local agaves in his expressions.
Alongside Maestro Mezcalero Abdias De La Luz Rodriguez (who crafts other Luneta expressions on the same distillery in Tepenene, Puebla), they preserve this unique and culturally significant method of crafting small batch agave spirits.
Agave:
To start, he gathers mature local agave papalometl, cuperata, espadilla & espadin. Historically, papalometl, cuperata & espadilla was only found in the wild but due to the increased demand and unsustainable harvesting, Chinto uses a semi-cultivated method to obtain the foundation of this rich elixir.
Roast:
Once Chinto and his team gather and sculpt the agaves, they roast the hearts in an underground earthen oven for 4 to 6 days using volcanic rock and mesquite and encino wood.
Fermentation and milling:
Unlike many mezcaleros, Chinto ferments the cooked agave hearts twice in bull hide sacs with potable water. The first time around, he ferments them whole. He and his team then rise with the sun and smash the whole fermented hearts by hand with wooden mallets. The crushed agave is then put back in the bull hide sacs for another round of fermentation.
Distillation:
Heated over a carefully tended fire, the fermented agave is distilled in a copper still. The second distillation is conducted in a still made of a stainless steal pot and a tree trunk neck. Each batch yields around 150 to 200 liters.
Cut:
The hearts, heads and tails are then mix to yield a balanced blend. This expression comes in at 47% abv.