People in Mexico and elsewhere will soon be marking the annual DÃa 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 , 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 . In Jalisco, the region’s ecosystems are being destroyed and replaced by 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 (), those who harvest the crops .
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 , tastier alternative. After all, .
Mezcal-making derives from a relationship between Indigenous Peoples and their landscape that . 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’ . 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 .
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 DÃa 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 — — 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, ±ð²õ±è²¹»åòÔ, 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 RÃo, an Indigenous Zapotec town in the state of Oaxaca, remote sensing has shown . In addition to soil degradation and loss, these cash crops supplant ones grown for local consumption and .
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 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, jabalà and tepeztate, .
There has been a , including ³Ù´Ç²ú²¹±ôá, which is . Many agaves used for mezcal production .
Sustainability concerns
A few studies have begun to quantify the broader impacts, . It takes two ³Ù´Ç²ú²¹±ôá 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, .
Overall, production of one bottle requires the equivalent of about . While this may be , it’s more than beer and wine.
Mezcal production may bring money into communities, but . For example, mezcal is now controlled under a . 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 DÃa 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.
, Professor, School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability,
, MSc, , and
, Professor of Geography & Environmental Studies and Anthropology,
This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence . Read the .
Photo captions and credits:
Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City (Ludovic Delot via Pexels)
Field of agave (Eduardo Rodriguez via Pexels)
Piñas of espadilla mezcal at a distillery in San Diego la Mesa Tochimiltzingo in the state of Puebla (Diana Pinzón)
In Oaxaca state, a mezcalero loads firewood to keep his traditional still running. Note the pile of discarded agave fibres. (Brendon Larson)