People in Mexico and elsewhere will soon be marking the annual Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) on Nov. 2. Many will celebrate the day with the quintessential Mexican beverage, tequila; perhaps in the form of a slushy margarita or a shot.
Tequila comes from a single species, blue agave. Agaves are fleshy plants of arid lands that accumulate sugars over several years to power their sole blooming. To produce tequila, the leaves and flower stalk are removed, the agave hearts (called piñas) roasted, and their sugars fermented and distilled.
Tequila was intentionally branded for a global market in the late 19th century, and it’s become an industrial product. There are vast blue-gray monocultures of it across the state of Jalisco, centred around the namesake town of Tequila.
Yet, in the interest of ethical consumption, we must consider the environmental impacts of industrial tequila production. There are several issues here. In Jalisco, the region’s ecosystems are being destroyed and replaced by a uniform crop that is prone to pest outbreaks.
Tequila’s manufacturing process consumes huge amounts of energy, water and agrochemicals. While some in the tequila industry make lots of money (such as celebrities who have their own brands), those who harvest the crops make significantly less.
In addition, despite the marketing, most commercial tequilas taste alike given their uniform source, standard yeast and mechanical production, not to mention added sugars and artificial flavours.
The mezcal shift
People have recently been turning to mezcal, perceiving it as a more authentic, tastier alternative. After all, tequila is simply mezcal from Tequila.
Mezcal-making derives from a relationship between Indigenous Peoples and their landscape that goes back millennia. They learned that agave fibers have many uses, for architecture, medicines and textiles. They drank the sweet, non-alcoholic sap, known as aguamiel and realized it could be fermented.
This history is the basis of peasant communities’ continued harvest of agave to make mezcal. They collect dozens of types of wild agave or grow them among other crops. They roast the hearts for several days in an earthen pit, then ferment them in a homegrown bacteria-and-yeast soup.
The distillation appears to be a more recent, colonial addition to the process. The resulting spirit has vital cultural meaning, not least in festivals such as Día de Muertos, where it honours those who have died and connects people to them.
Traditional production is slow and varied. It distils the diversity of life and the people’s history into a delightful bouquet: not just smoky, as many people think, but floral, fruity, herbal, metallic and so much more.
Is mezcal sustainable?
Many consumers find the narrative of mezcal’s authenticity and sustainability appealing. Its volume is a blip relative to tequila, so surely it must be better for both people and the planet. It’s never simple to assess sustainability, though, and the rapid growth of the industry — with eight per cent more expected annually through 2030 — raises a flag.
Traditional practices have been co-opted, and the same powerful families and multinational brands that drove tequila’s rise grow the main agave used for mezcal, espadín, in large farms of clones.
The spread of commercial farming destroys habitat, specifically the tropical dry forest where many of Mexico’s restricted, native species occur. In San Juan del Río, an Indigenous Zapotec town in the state of Oaxaca, remote sensing has shown an increase in agave cover from six to 22 per cent in 26 years. In addition to soil degradation and loss, these cash crops supplant ones grown for local consumption and strain traditional governance.
From a biodiversity perspective, it’s an open question whether family-scale operations are better given the pressure to expand. Agave and the trees used for firewood for roasting and distilling are interwoven ecological hubs in this dry landscape, along with the bats who visit them for nectar. Overharvesting can lead to ecosystem strain, if not collapse.
Connoisseurs have worsened the problem by developing a taste for particular species like cuish, jabalí and tepeztate, some of which cannot be cultivated, take decades to mature or yield less mezcal.
There has been a documented decline in desirable species of agave, including tobalá, which is listed as vulnerable. Many agaves used for mezcal production are rare.
Sustainability concerns
A few studies have begun to quantify the broader impacts, reinforcing questions about sustainability. It takes two tobalá plants, which require 10-15 years to mature, to produce one bottle of mezcal. Ten kilograms of both liquid and solid waste are released. Even if firewood is used rather than fuel, its weight may match that of the hearts.
Overall, production of one bottle requires the equivalent of about five litres of gasoline. While this may be less carbon than tequila, it’s more than beer and wine.
Mezcal production may bring money into communities, but the interface with global markets brings its own issues. For example, mezcal is now controlled under a Denomination of Origin (DO) certification. While this geographic indicator was ostensibly intended to protect small producers, evidence suggests they’re struggling to meet its standards (and cost) while power and profits concentrate elsewhere.
If you are celebrating this Día de Muertos with mezcal, consider buying from a collaborative that still relies on traditional practices: caring for agave and the land by leaving some flowers for the bats, replanting, reducing chemical use and recycling waste. Bear in mind that growing human consumption is at the root of unsustainability, which just adds to the reasons to moderate one’s drinking.
This article was co-authored by Diana Pinzón, a forestry engineer and co-founder of Zinacantan Mezcal and Fondo Agavero Asociación Civil.
Brendon Larson receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Ronda L. Brulotte has received funding from the U.S. Fulbright Program.
Raymundo Martínez Jiménez does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
