Slow Baja - Lou Bank Mr. Agave Talks Mezcal

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

Lou Bank is the founder of SACRED, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life in rural Mexican communities that produce heritage agave spirits. He also co-hosts the podcast "Agave Road Trip," which aims to help bartenders gain a deeper understanding of agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico.Lou is a genuinely kind and caring individual, and I am thrilled to share this Slow Baja conversation with you. I'd suggest you pour yourself a fine Tequila Fortaleza or your favorite Mezcal and enjoy the conversation.Follow the work of SACRED in Mexico here.Follow SACRED on Instagram.Listen to the "Agave Road Trip" podcast.

It's nice I haven't had to look at my cards yet. What would you like to pour next? Bank, I am Lou Bank, I am Lou Bank. I am Lou Bank. A palapa. Oh, Jesus, watch out. Hey, this is Michael Emory. Thanks for tuning into the Slow Baja. This podcast is powered by

tequila fortaleza, handmade in small batches, and hands down, my favorite tequila. You know, I've long said it, ask your doctor if Baja's right for you. If you've been hankering to get down to Slow Baja, you've got to check out the Adventures tab at Slowbaha.com. All my trips are there, from my vintage extravaganzas in fall and summer to my fantastic winter expedition that's open to four by fours of NEH. Now, of course, you can bring something old, but this trip is. perfect for modern rigs. Got a go fast camper or a rooftop tent on your taco? Let's go. Bring your gal.

Bring your best Baja bud. Bring your dog. This slow Baja adventure is for you. We've got whale watching. We've got beach camping. Raul at Rancho LaBayota is going to roast a lamb on a spit that will change your life. You know, I take care of breakfast and dinner on these trips and it really does take the sting out of camping. Great food, private campsites, ranch stays, good. dirt roads and extraordinary people are the ingredients that make up a slow Baja expedition. To find your trip, check out the Adventures tab at slowbaha.com, but don't delay all my slow Baja expeditions sell out. So you got questions, hit that contact button, ready to book, use that slow Baja boarding pass at slowbaha.com slash shop, and I look forward to seeing you in Baja

soon. And folks, just so you know, I am always here for you for your Baja trip planning questions. One question, 100 questions. The easy way to get me is slowbaha.com slash contact. And if you'd like to go to Baja and you don't want to go by yourself, you don't have a vintage vehicle, my winter trip doesn't work out for you. I am happy to talk to you about organizing and leading a private guided tour. I've done it. I've loved it. The pictures are over there at slowbaha.com slash adventures.

And you can check them out. And if you've got some questions, let's talk. Hey, thanks for tuning in to today's Slow Baja. My heaping dose of gratitude goes out to Guillermo Sousa from Tequila Fortaleza, better known in Mexico, as Los Abuelos. But Guillermo's the man responsible for starting this brand, handmade, tiny little distillery, his old family distillery on his hacienda. And he's making tequila the way his ancestors made it, the way his grandparents' grandfather's made it for many generations. and I just love being a teeny tiny little part of this. I got Guillermo to sponsor my La Carrera Pan American race team back in 2008.

Nobody knew about Fortaleza in those days. And I got to pour tequila for 2,000 miles to Mexico, bottle after bottle after bottle and share the story. I've been able to do fun things with Fortaleza since. And I was really thinking about how something like a fabulous, small tequila and being part of the tiny story of that tequila and bringing people together over tequila. And it leads right up to moving here to Chicago, walking into a restaurant, seeing five bottles of Fortaleza, five different varieties, which I had never seen before

and starting to talk to the bartender about that. And of course, he'd been to the distillery. He'd met Guillermo because Guillermo brings bartenders in. If you pour it or sell it, You can come to a party at Day of the Dead, Halloween time, fabulous party, and see behind the curtain. You get to see how handmade, how tiny the entire operation is. And I think that's just been gold in getting bartenders to invest in the success of this small brand. Well, anyways, through investing in a little taste of the single bottle reposato, single barrel reposato, the bartender said, hey, do you know Lou Bank? And, of course, I just moved to Chicago and I don't know anybody.

So he said, well, if you love agave, you got to know Lou Bank. And so I reached out to Lou and we met for a drink and we started talking about the work he's doing in Mexico and the work I'm doing in Mexico with the Baja baseball. And, well, anything, one thing leads to another. And we're sitting down to talk about agave on Slow Baja. So without further ado, Lou Bank today talking to gaver on Slow Baja. Welcome to the Slow Baja podcast. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad I'm here too, Michael. You've brought some stuff, and I just think since you're Mr. Agave, or I think of you as Mr.

Agave, why don't we just have a sip of whatever you've brought, and you can just start by telling Slow Baja all about that. And that, yeah, you just shook that like a pro. This guy, this guy knows what he's doing. I don't know if I go that far. All right. So I'm going to give you this. I've got the hero Copita. You've got the villain Copita.

That's right. Put a little bit in here since you've got two other bottles for us to play with later. And so what I've got here, it's funny. I actually grabbed the wrong bottle. I got this bottle of spirits from somebody. I don't really know that well. I only met once. Saludos.

And since we're doing this on video, but many people will be listening to it on audio. Can you, A, tell us what we're drinking from this person you don't really know, and then B, how one properly sips mescal and how you introduce it to your mouth and all that? I mean, you can just slam it, I'm sure, right? But somebody. Whatever you want as long as you're a paying, consenting adult. Exactly.

So what I've got here is by Jose Luis Contreras. I'm sorry, Jose Ruiz. You can just hold it to the camera there. There you go. Okay. So it's, it's that. Yeah,

and then it's all of this, this fine detail information here. Yes, exactly. So he's in Los Canoas, Halisco, just outside of Zapotelan de Vadillo. I was, I was going there to visit a different

mescalero who wasn't in that day, but we ended up at his little Vanata, his little distillery, and a bunch of his friends, including Jose Ruiz. Ruiz. They were there. So they sold us a bunch of booze.

So that's to say that I was looking for something that was emblematic of the region that was cooked underground in a stone-lined earthen oven that was milled by hand using wooden mallets that was fermented open air and wells in the ground, literally earthen wells. So we're starting there, folks. Yeah, that's what we're starting.

and then distilled in wood fired. I want to say it was a steel pot still, but it might have been a copper pot still. And so I was there because Sacred, the nonprofit that I run was doing some projects, is still doing some projects. And Zapotee Laudeva Dio, which is just like right next door, 15, 20 minutes away.

So I like having spirits that reflect the communities in which we work, So I have something to talk about besides, you know, just the things that we're funding and talking about them through the spirits that I think represent the community. I don't know if you remember the evening we sat just down the street here at, what is it, Cruz Blanca? Lina Brava, but you also started at Cruz Blanca. Yeah, so anyways, the two restaurants formerly owned by your friend, Rick Bayliss. So you spied a bottle on the top shelf.

So a nice selection of agave spirits, and you spied a bottle on the top shelf, and had a thought that maybe the distiller, maybe that bottle is an old bottle and the famed distiller who made that bottle, who has passed. Maybe that might be one of his gem bottles from a decade ago, and they pulled the bottle down,

and it was exactly what he was. what you thought it was, and we had a couple of sips of that. And my, again, I wish I knew you much better, Lou, but I feel like I do. There's time, Michael. I know, I feel like I do. And, you know, I know 10 or 12 things about Fortaleza. I've been doing fun stuff with them since 2008 when nobody knew about the distillery. And, you know, in my trip there in 2011, I ran into Grover before he started tequila.

matchmaker. He was just doing some other stuff. He'd just moved to Guadalajara. And, you know, we had shared a photography background. So it's Grover, myself, and Del Hefe, Guillermo. And it's just before all the bartenders come in for the day of the dead thing. So Guillermo was completely panicked about what his Halloween costume was going to be. So here's this maestro of tequila, fifth generation distiller. And the only thing he can freaking worry about is like, what, What is his costume going to be? So the whole day is spent when we're sipping and I got a tour and all that stuff. But, you know, every minute we're out, he's looking for a costume and saying like, what should

I do? What should I do? What should I do? And I'm like, it's such an interesting thing. So anyways, that's a long way around to say, I know 10 things about Fortaleza. But when I asked you about this, this bottle that we were drinking, and I don't know if you remember clearly what we were drinking. If it rings a bell for you, it was a famed distiller who had passed.

and it was probably a bottle from 2014 or something so before he passed, a couple years before he passed, Brown label. Anyways, you told me about 50 things, literally about 50 things about that distillery. And the greatest thing is right here, Lou, you don't even remember. So you know 50 things about multiple mescal makers. You know, I think you're being too kind.

I don't know that I know 50 things about myself, you know. But what I will say is that, So I started this nonprofit sacred. And you're going to tell us what that acronym means. Yeah. So it's an acronym that stands for saving agave for culture, recreation, education, and development. And one thing I know about myself is that I chose the wrong name. And what I mean by that is, you know, it's shortened to sacred agave to so many people.

And that suggests that the important thing is the agave. and just those first two words saving agave suggests that the important thing is the agave. And I'm not suggesting that agave isn't important. I think, you know, all plants are important. All living things are important. But, you know, now what I realize years later is the thing that speaks to me most, that moves me the most, are these people who, against all odds, define the trajectory that the rest of the world seem to move on, continue to practice the ways of

their families, even though they don't reflect efficiency, they don't reflect manners in which you could actually get ahead personally. They reflect these traditions that focus not on efficiency but on best results. And so when you say that I know 50 things, Like, again, I think that's an exaggeration. But what I can tell you is that I'm so moved and so impressed by and so in awe of so many of these people that I've met in Mexico who adhere to these traditions, that what I'm recounting to you are the things that I'm guessing. Again, I don't remember who specifically it was. And unfortunately, a number of mescaleros have passed in the last several. years but what I was recounted to you were things that really put me in all of them and

and and are the things that sent me on this journey of trying to repair some of the damage that I do by drinking moscow so maybe we should get into that right away maybe we should just do a primer on it doesn't matter how what the price tag is it might not be good stuff that you're drinking. There are so many things that I would love for you to decode about agave. So I'm a tequila lover. I think we have a few issues in common. You've you've shared with me your gluten intolerant, which is what led you under this agave path. I will just tell you that beer makes me itch and wine makes me itch. So maybe I am too, but that's what led me to tequila. What does it, what part of your body are you, are you itching? You really want to know?

all those dark sweaty parts or are you scratching i guess yeah it's the next day it's really the next day so it's like it gets me in the back of my tongue and whatever oh okay well that's you know that may be too much sweaty parts that's you know safe to talk about yeah maybe too much information for this little baha audience they are they're seeing inside my house now they're uh they're learning about what makes me itch and what doesn't make me itch but um i i did get on to tequila and And very early in that journey, I met Guillermo Sousa and basically became a one-trick pony. So for a very, very long time, it was my trick, my gimmick to ask every bartender in every bar if they had Fortaleza.

And they would say, oh, no, it's Fortaleza. And then you'd give them a little spiel about it and that they ought to get it. And then when they get it, they can go to the distillery for a party and you'd really love it and see how small and handmade and all of that stuff. You know, the only change is the tractor turns the Tihona instead of the mule, which got bit by the horse, and they had to, you know, retire both of those from their duties. I don't know why she swallowed the fly. Exactly, exactly.

But a very traditional operation, a very small operation, I think when bartenders saw how honest the whole thing was, when they got behind the curtain and saw the hand-blown bottles, the labels get. getting a fix, the stoppers being made by hand, all that stuff. And then again, how small the distillery was. And then the entire world's supply fit in, you know, not much more space than my apartment here. I think it did, the story was real. And there are a lot of stories, but not all the stories are real.

Fair. Yeah. Yeah. There are a lot of stories. Yeah. And in a world filled with celebrities and 2,500 new tequila brands, a year and now the same thing happening with Miss Gal, take it away. How does one slice, dice, and discern to drink better or drink best? Oh, God. Well, you know, everybody's going to have

their own definition of better and best, right? And I think it has... That's why you're here. Their definitions don't matter, Lou. You're the guest with all the expertise. Their definitions are the only ones that matter. And I mean that in a couple of different ways. Yeah, you pay your money. take your choice, but you don't need to buy Duane the Rock's tequila. He's going to be fine without that sale. Well, okay. Unless he's doing 1% for the planet, which then also benefits you. I don't know if he is or not. I don't think he is. Not with you yet. But, you know, what I will say is that, God, I was just, I was just on an Instagram live thing with a lot Takea ladies.

And I just, I came in hot with the 818 and, and they're one of our biggest support. Not even one of our, they are hands down on the largest financial support. God bless them. Yeah, right, exactly. God bless them. Put their money where their mouth was. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, what I will say is, look, you know, there are a lot of things, like when we

were overdoing our little prep there, I mentioned to you that I like drinking monster. And that was not like a joke. Like I literally, I had a monster this morning. I was quite happy to be awakened by a monster this morning. And there are a lot of things that I consume that are just basically things that I consume. And for most people, I would argue that that's what tequila is. And for a lot of people, they really do care about their tequila.

And they like things like Dwayne the Rock Johnson's tequila, the name of no, mana. Taramana. Teramana. Thank you. So, and I don't begrudge them that. I really don't.

And, you know, I... Just for the record, I do. For sure, I... You begrudge them? I do. I don't know that I want to be begrudging the rock. No. You know, but, you know,

there are choices to be made. Yeah, you know, and I'm frankly more of a mankind person than I am a rock guy, but that's a different story altogether. So, I think that there's first the question of what direction does your taste lean, right? But then there's also the direction of, okay, everything that we consume has some impact, everything that we consume. By consume, I don't even mean just the things that we- Sustainable, not one bottle that comes from anywhere in the world is sustainable. One bottle, that's exactly right.

Once you look at the carbon footprint of a glass bottle, once you look at the carbon footprint created by moving that bottle from wherever it was made to wherever you're consuming it, once you start looking at all these pieces, you have to recognize that you're creating a carbon wake behind you that is going to have a negative impact on somebody. Every convenience, every piece of joy that is in your life is a hardship for somebody else somewhere, right? And that doesn't mean that we need to deprive ourselves of joy, but it does mean that we should take responsibility for it and try to repair some of that damage where we can. So, you know, when you're looking at something specifically like tequila, you know, your friend Guillermo, who I've never met, and I would dearly love to meet him. yet you keep your friends in bottles. Your friend Guillermo is one of the few people who is growing Blue Weber agave from seed, and he's doing it, I believe, in coordination with Grover, right?

And I really admire that, though my understanding is nothing that he is growing from seed has been harvested yet, which is to say that anybody drinking tequila is drinking a monoculture, and that monoculture has replaced the fields that were used for growing food for local consumption in Halisco. And replaced oftentimes by the very same people who were eating that food because they can make more money or they could make more money before the collapse of the price of Blue Web or Agave could make more money growing that and buying their food from somewhere else.

And it's replacing the wild lands in Halisca. that were home to a biodiversity of plants that were food for a biodiversity of insects that are food for a biodiversity of animals. And all of that is at risk because you and I want to have tequila. And and and and has also happened in many, many other regions of the world. Bordeaux, Piedmonté, Napa Valley. Pouire tea. Yeah, all of these. Pouette has destroyed the landscape of that.

specific place in China that used to be really small and got a lot bigger because we all wanted our puer tea. Right. And so I think that there's an interesting thing. And I hope that we'll get circled all the way around to what Sacred is doing to rectify some of those costs, some of those impacts. And I'm going to let you feel free to take it from there. But yeah, it's unfortunately maybe what's happening in Mexico all over the place is in a long. line of other mono crops, you know, where I grew up next to the grand tradition. Yeah, where I grew up next to Sonoma, Napa in my short lifespan of 50 years now, you know, I saw it. I saw all those open spaces become big, big dollar wineries and hobby wineries. And so it just

became one blanket of grapes after another blanket of grapes, after another blanket of grapes, after another blanket of grapes for 40 miles straight. And basically like seven different grapes as opposed to the hundreds of... Yeah, with a little strip here and there for the bees. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and, you know, and again, I don't want you to hear this as... Which is why I'm not drinking wine anymore, folks. Except for last night.

Yeah. So, you know, which... And now your tongue is itchy. But I don't want you to hear that as an essence. me telling people to stop drinking wine or stop drinking tequila. I'm not saying that. What I am saying is be mindful of it. There are some tequillas that are made in Michua Khan.

They're not easy to find. There are five different states in which they make tequila, but 95% of it, that's a made-up figure. But roughly 95% of it comes out of Halisco. So if we can just start moving our consumption patterns to having a little bit more tequila from those other four states, groovy. And I would say if we can just look at all of our consumption patterns and change them a little bit.

Look at producers like Guillermo who are trying, so besides being a monoculture, it's also, Blue Weber Agave is also genetically homogenous because nobody is growing from seed. They're just using Iuelos, little clones that come off of the roots, right? and that's putting that very crop at risk of collapse. So you've got somebody like Guillermo who's doing what I would call one element of best practices,

right, to try and ensure that Blue Weber doesn't disappear because there's basically just two genetic mothers, right? So I'm in essence saying, look, don't stop drinking tequila, but think about if you're a person who cares about tequila, And again, the vast majority of consumers probably don't. They're just going to the bar saying, give me a margarita, and they have no idea even what a well spirit is. Right.

Well, you're somebody who cares about it, so make that your thing. And select something where you have some idea of some of the positives of drinking that specific tequila. So because Fortaleza has become so difficult to find here at, retail in the Chicago area where I now live. Exactly. I'm sure that bottle came from California. I brought it back in my luggage that probably Giromo's son, Billy, gave it to me for a trip, and I didn't drink the whole thing, so I brought it with me. I find myself oftentimes staring at Tequila Matchmaker, and thank you, Grover. Folks, if you haven't checked out Tequila Matchmaker. Great resource. And I happened to be at Binnie's this past weekend because we were going to a party,

and I wanted to bring some tequila, and of course they don't have fortaleas, and they just laugh when you ask. But I have to ask, and I have to ask if they're hiding some in the back, and then, you know, whatever, try and butter up the guys. And so I'm looking at a couple rows of tequila

to think, well, what am I going to bring? So I happen to like Tapatio quite a bit. And so I just took a glance at Tapatio. And interestingly enough, I don't recall how it's process. I'm hoping it's not a diffuser, hoping I'm not enjoying drinking a diffus. I've seen it, you know, honestly, like I wouldn't claim to know enough about tequila to say, oh, that is. But I know that enough of the tequila geek forums on Facebook, they talk about how good it is.

So there's no way they would say that about a diffuser product. And so I had, you know, my wife, six things. She had the, we were going to a New Orleans themed party, a Crodad boil. And she had the New Orleans beer in hand. She was like, pick your tequila, let's go. nerd. And so I'm reading about, you know, should have a bourbon if it's a new. Yeah, but I can't drink bourbon. I'm just going to drink tequila, so I want to bring a bottle. So anyways, getting back to it, you know,

highly rated. A tick under Fortaleza, one or two points under Fortaleza and two, maybe a third of the price, half the price, something like that. And so, you know, we brought the bottle to the party. It disappeared rapidly. I enjoyed my share of it immensely. And what I was getting to before is trying to put you on the spot to tick off. a couple of things that you had just referenced when you were saying what you were looking for when you were in your roadside small distillery. When you're looking for a tequila, and we're going to start with tequila, because then we're going to get deep and dirty into Mescalis. Because I know that's really where you live and love down in the mud bog. What do you look for?

I mean, is it Tahona crush? Is it, you know, what type of cooking they do? I mean, where are your parameters? Where are your markers, your goal markers for, okay, if I'm going to drink this thing, and I know you're drinking Mascal when you're drinking because you're mainly drinking monsters, that's what I hear. So what are you looking for? What are your markers? In a tequila? Yeah.

Or in an agave spirit? In a tequila first. And then we're going to get on to, you're going to define agave spirits. And then we're going to get into all that darkness. Okay. Well, this is going to piss a lot of people off. So, you know, I would say. 40 bucks a bottle and that's it.

No, no, no, no, no. So, you know, there are very few tequilas that I've tasted. I'll start by saying there are very few that I've tasted that I actively dislike. But there are also very few I've tasted that I actively like. There are a whole bunch where I've tasted and I go, oh, okay. And I never need to taste it again. Right. And so when you say if I'm looking for a tequila, like I'm never looking for a tequila.

Well, let me rephrase that. if you were to educate the Slow Baja audience on what to look for in the tequila, the first couple markers. But what I would look for in a tequila, if I wanted to change the trajectory of the consumption patterns of slow Baja listeners, I would say look for a tequila that's not made in Halisco. That'd be my first marker. All right.

So get them out of the neighborhood. Yeah, get them out of the neighborhood. Now, look, realistically, that's hard. to find. It's really hard to find. Right. And you're going to find that in the, you know, the information in the small print on the back, basically, is where you're going to find that. Yeah, or go to Tequila Matchmaker, which is a huge resource. You know, I've had a bunch of people, during the pandemic, a bunch of corporations hired

me to do tequila tastings. And honestly, like, what I know about tequila is, like, it's just tiny. It's very, very tiny. So I used Grover and Scarlet's website and app to prep me for those tastings, honestly. And I would spin off from that into the stuff that I do know, excuse me, that I do know firsthand, but what I know about tequila is so minimal. What I do know is it's a monoculture, and if we continue to consume it the way we are, we're going to do further damage. It's already damaging, but further damage to a part of Mexico that is a part of the Americas that is a part of the world that I don't think we can afford to do more damage to. So then let's switch gears here and talk a little bit about sacred and the kind of projects

that you're working on and that, you know, and who's funding that and how it's being funded and a little bit about your motivations in helping the people who are creating these spirits that we love. Sure. Mescal, the others, the Agave spirits. The others, being on Ms. Gale. We're changing gears here. We're not talking about tequila anymore. This guy really doesn't know anything about tequila.

He's Mr. Agave, but you know what? He's not doing the simple stuff. He's doing the complex stuff. Well, you know, again, like, I think you're giving me too much credit. You know, what I, would I, I've been working in nonprofit since about 1999, right? And so I think a... Hang on, after a massively successful career in the comic book industry and bringing Pokemon cards to the world.

Night of cards, comics. Oh, Pokemon Comics. And those are things I've just never said on Slow Baja, so I just want to acknowledge that you never know where an genius comes from or expertise. Again, yeah, and again, way too much credit. But, you know, I've been running nonprofits since about 1999 and

volunteering for them since I was just literally starting off in sales at Marvel Comics back in the 80s. And I think what I've whittled it down to is a good nonprofit, does one of two things or both things, and that is either help preserve an at-risk resource or help leverage an underutilized resource.

And, you know, I saw both of these things, and it took me a while to recognize it, but I saw both of these things in visiting rural Mexico, specifically, initially, Waxaca, and now, you know, I've, I think I've visited 26 of the 32 states. and and so it goes back to what I was saying earlier that I go to these communities and I see these people who you know the result most commonly up here that we recognize are these 750 milliliter bottles of amazing spirits that taste like nothing else we ever tasted before now and you know having said that like what we're drinking right now I love and I've shared this bottle with a number my friends and they don't get it, right?

Which goes back to that tequila conversation. Right. Right? Like, I taste tequila. I don't get a lot out of it. I'm not saying I dislike it, but it doesn't push my happy buttons in the way that it clearly pushes yours. Well, it's a little bit like having a hamburger versus some wild game.

Well, you're down another path and you're doing things that are a lot more complex. Well, I would say to my palate more complex, but I'm not suggesting that you are not refined enough to understand what I'm doing. That's not what I'm saying at all. And I'll just peel back the curtain. So a brand ambassador for many years ago, the meatball, Eric Girindina, went off the deep end when he left Fort Laeza. He went off the deep end and moved to Oaxaca. He's a little five-foot, six-inch guy, you bright red hair. maybe you met him somewhere, and really went deep.

And he occasionally came back to San Francisco and bartended in my neighborhood. And at one point he sent me a text message that said, I have 60 liters of mescal with me. I just got back last night. They're all in water, plastic water bottles, which you will appreciate. And as someone who's probably brought in a few of those bottles yourself, I don't know how he did it. The law control commission says more than a few and a few too many.

Yeah, and maybe California laws are slightly more generous, but I don't know how he did it, but after my buddy Tom, who had moved to Merida, after he and I had finished all the Fortaleza in the house, I made the brilliant suggestion of walking down the hill and seeing Eric because he had all this mescal. and the first one was gasoline and then to sate our palettes after that one. He made a magnificent cocktail. And then I think Jimmy Hendrick started playing in my head. And then one thing led to another. And it's the very first time ever in my life of being a dad.

And my three kids were in high school, so it really didn't matter. But my wife was away on a business trip. It's the first time I wasn't able to get out of bed. And I did kind of take a peek over the side of the bed to say, oh, I'm glad I didn't throw up, because it was a crazy night. And now, again, that's quantity, that's mixing. That's a lot of other bad practices that went into that. But unfortunately, there's a tiny little piece in my mind that says, ooh, mescal, really dangerous.

Stick with what you know. And subsequently, we took a family trip to Oaxaca. We had a lovely time. I made up with my friend Mescal. It's okay now. I really enjoyed the evening we sat and sipped two or three things very slowly. Yeah. It was really lovely.

And I think that the thing that you don't get in maybe any other spirit, I mean, obviously in wine, you taste the tour war, tuarr, excuse me for tripping. Pardon my friends. Yeah, excuse me for tripping over myself here. You taste the land. And to tequila, in tequila and in scotch, you're going to taste lowland, highland, Pete, you know, what, have you, but in mescal and the agave spirits that you're going to pick up and talk about, you're getting into it. You're tasting a lot. Yeah, particularly if you, you know, this goes back to the question you asked me at the very beginning that I didn't answer, which is, you know,

how do you drink it, right? And there's a whole sort of practice that I put people through when they attend one of my tastings. But the key to it, the bottom line to it is, You know, if you think about the Tower of Babel and you walk into this Tower of Babel and all you hear is a cacophony, and it's overwhelming, right? That, to me, is mescal if you're not used to it because it is made, and, you know, any agave spirit is made from the most complex sugar source in the world. in order for most of the sugar sources, all the other sugar sources that are used to make alcohol, and they all start with sugar, all those other sugar sources take a maximum of six months to reach maturity. Whereas with agave, you're starting at something like four years, and some people will tell you, and I don't know that I believe in them, that it's as much as 40 years, right?

So the sugar source, the fact that the sugar is that old to me isn't relevant. The fact that that sugar source had to survive in a hostile environment meant that it developed all of these defense mechanisms, and those are natural chemicals that are present throughout the process of converting that sugar source into a spirit, during the cooking, the fermentation, the distillation. And so at the end, you get what I would argue is the most complex thing you can drink. So if you drink it too quickly, too big a sip, to me it's like walking into that tower of babble and just hearing the cacophony. But if instead... I think that was the Jimmy Hendrix starting up in my head.

I won't tell Jimmy fans, do you think that's a cacophony? But yes, that. No, I mean, just that heavy riff just hit me like, boom, dung, dung, dung. Okay, you're getting into some dangerous territory. But you take that tiny sip and you hold it on your tongue to the count of five. If it's hot after you swallow it, five, go to seven, go to nine until your palate starts to recognize all of that complexity. Smaller the sip, the bigger the taste. The more you sip, the more your palate recognizes that complexity.

And suddenly, in that Tower of Babel, you hear some Spanish, you hear some German, you hear some Italian. You start picking up all of these different languages, if you will, and then you start recognizing the beauty of it. or not. It could be that it's just not the thing that you like, but that's how I tend to drink it. And so, you know, I'm visiting Mexico time and again trying to figure out what it is that's drawing me back, and I recognize that, okay, there's this worldview that really does speak to my heart, that really is so different from how I live and how I was raised that we taste in these 750 milliliter bottles, but reflects this multi-generational wisdom that's applied in so many other ways in the communities in which these spirits are made by these families who have been doing this for

hundreds of years. And to me, the remarkable piece of that is that we live in a world where so much is made by machines, so much is made in cookie cutter style, so much of what I consume on a daily basis is, right? And here is this wisdom that's doing things differently, and that, to me, is an underutilized resource that can help us solve problems like water and security, food and security, and climate change if we include it in the conversation. And we're at risk of losing that resource. So again, that second part of the equation, we're at risk of losing that resource as we drink more and more mescal, more and more tequila, consuming the resources that these families need to carry on, this tradition that really does fuel both, you know,

emotionally, psychologically and financially, really does help fuel these traditions, this way of life. On that profound statement, we're going to take a quick break. so that I can tell you about my friends at Baja Bound in case you happen to want to drive down to Mexico and check out the Agave growing regions or just head over to Baja. You're going to need some Mexican insurance, and the folks at Baja Bound will get you there, wherever you're going, Baja or mainland, and we'll be right back with Lou Bank talking about the people, the place, agave, Mr. Agave. We're going to talk about all that stuff in just a second.

Here at SLOBAHA. We can't wait to drive our old land. cruiser south of Boehler. When we go, we'll be going with Baja Bound Insurance. Their website's fast and easy to use. Check them out at Bajaubound.com. That's Bajaubound.com, serving Mexico travelers since 1994. Hey, big thanks to those of you who've contributed to our Baja baseball project. You know, we launched our gear deliveries on my winter expedition. Michael and Matthew from Barbers for Baja. We're along for the ride, and we got to

deliver that critically needed baseball gear up and down the peninsula. It was really, truly amazing. And on my last trip, I got to go to the state baseball championships and see some of our alums playing, some recipients of the Baja Baseball Gear Deliveries. And congratulations to Guerrera Negro and Mulej, the Austenaros and the Cardinalitos won silver and bronze at the state championships. Big stuff. It's really fun to be there and fun to see them. All right, well, please Help us continue this vital work. Make your tax deductible donation at the Barbers for Baja. Click barbers for Baja.org.

Click the Baseball in Baja link. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I really do. It is so amazingly gratifying to be able to give these kids this chance to keep playing this sport. Keep them on the field. Keep them out of trouble. Please check it out. Baseball in Baja link at barbers for Baja.org.

Thank you. All right, we're back with Lou Bank getting connected over Slow Baja alum's Nuel with El Refugio in Toto Santos, who gave me this bottle, unmarked bottle of mescal from... Oh, that's so funny. If it's espapin, that's the type of... Espadine. Espadine. Espadine.

I can't read his writing. Saludos amigone now that I poured this all over your hands. It's hardly the first time. My hands have been covered in this stuff. Noel is a good guy. And where is he from? He is from Mexico. Yes.

But his wife, Rachel, is actually the one that I know. Oh, yeah. Know her through the cookbook, or how? Sort of. Actually, I know her through comic books in a weird way. That is a weird way. Yeah, she went to high school. I want to stay in Oregon, though, I could be wrong, with the wife of one of my old

friends, one of my old co-workers at Dark Horse Comics. Wow. All right. Well, it's a small world. Agave makes the world very small. Yeah. And Noel said some very profound things about Mescal bringing out things into your soul, things from your soul, and revealing those things to me, which I happened to, again,

that one night that I already referenced, I referenced with Noel. And he said, yeah, throw that night away. That night doesn't count. You were just being stupid. You know, actually, I've got to say, and it's completely off the general topics that we're talking about, but I really like that story. And I like, sorry for your pain.

But, you know, I'm so tired of people saying, oh, Mascale is the clean spirit, and you can't have a hangover when you drink Mascale. You can have a hangover when you drink anything that is alcohol. Yeah. And in a quantity that I can see. it. Exactly.

After consuming whatever level of Fortaleza we had left in the house and then walking down there, two merry lambs to the slaughter. Yep, yep, yep, yep. And you can drink Mallort and not have a hangover if you just drink Malort in moderation. This episode of Slow Baja is brought to you in part by Malort. Yeah, I tell you. I've only had one Malort since moving to Chicago and I think one is enough. I had to had the handshake.

the local bar and I thought, okay, Malort's not for me. That'll be the next tasting that we do. You know, I'm the only actual street team for Malort. I don't doubt that. Malort, folks, for you who are not knowledgeable about what's happening here in Chicago, Malort is kind of a Chicago thing. Oh, very much a Chicago thing. And the handshake is an old style 16-ounceer in a can and a shot of Malort,

which is kind of what would you call it? grapefruity kind of? Well, yeah. You know, like... Eating a grapefruit rine with some alcohol finish behind it. Yeah, I like to think of Mallort as if you could... If you took traffic on the Kennedy and combined it with, like it had sex with and had a baby with the win-loss record of the Chicago Cubs. And then you could distill that and put it in a bottle.

That's what Mallort tastes like. It's that bitter. Currently being served with cicadas, since we're having this. 17-year cicada, boom. All right. Well, hey, Lou, you do some serious stuff. I want to put you on the spot to talk a little bit about some of your projects. So sacred.

Did you ever define that? I can't remember that. I was so long ago in the show. I can't remember if you actually defined the acronym sacred. Could you do it again for me? It stands for saving agave for culture, recreation, education, and development. But, you know, first, I'm going to... I get really anal about language.

So I don't really have any projects, right? I'm just a guy. And Sacred's just an organization that stands in between. Yeah, that's exactly right. He's a facilitator. So what we do is we go to the communities where they make heritage of gavé spirits, and we ask the families who make these spirits, the people who make these spirits, what problems they have,

what solutions they imagine to those problems, and then what resources they need to enact those solutions. I don't want to be just another person coming down to Mexico to tell them how to solve their problems. I clearly don't know how, right? Well, thanks for being on the show today, Lou. That is so un-American. Thank you. Well, it's North American.

So I ask them, you know, what are your problems, what are the solutions you imagine, what resource do you need. And then I go and I find people who want to help provide those resources. And initially, you know, that was primarily bartenders and wait staff in restaurants around Chicago. And then some of the restaurants as well and the bars. And then brands started coming. Oh, I'm sorry, the Mascal Geeks, Agave Enthusus started contributing. And then the brands started bringing us money. And Dark Matter Coffee was one of the first big donors. Nope, that's a lie.

They were the first big donor. And then... And then... A little thing called 1% for the planet. Yeah, 1% for the planet came knocking. 1% can be a lot. Yeah, you know, it's funny. People say, oh, 1%, what is that?

Well, you know, it's 1% of gross annual revenues, which is not the same as 1%. of your profit, right? So, you know, a company, if you think about the average restaurant, the average restaurant probably has margins, if they're doing well, of 10 to 12%. And so 1% of gross annual revenues actually can kick you back 10% of your total profit, right? That's huge. So we get 1% for the planet contacts us and says to me, hey, why aren't you answering our

emails? and I just assumed I was getting spam like every other nonprofit, but it turned out that in fact, 818 Tequila, Kendall Jenner's tequila brand, wanted to select us as the recipient of their 1%, because they signed on to be members of 1% for the planet. They wanted us to be the recipients, and so we had to go through a vetting process, which we did.

And literally overnight, that one phone call allowed us to grow the resources that we provide to rural Mexico by a thousand percent. Yeah. So can you pick one or two projects that you have helped to facilitate with either the 818 money or somebody else's money? But tell me a little bit about what happens to the folks in these rural communities that make these spirits that we love. Yeah. And that's the thing. I mean, again, it's not always pretty what those communities look like and what the folks who are harvesting those agave or what's going on there.

And so tell me a little bit about where the rubber meets the road. Sure, yeah. So one of the projects that really, really speaks to my heart is there's this mescalero in San Juan Espanatica, Halisco, who, to me, he's the hero of the community, right? is, I want to say, seventh generation Mescalero in southern Halisco, who's the guy who's providing the spirits for the local fiestas, for the local family celebrations. And because I drive an SUV back here in Chicago, right, you get climate change, and climate change is causing this crazy rain pattern down in this community, in Arturo's community.

and as a result, his distillery, what he calls is Tachika, his little Venata's little distillery, it's located on this hillside and it's starting to collapse down the hillside. The hillside itself is starting to collapse. So we get him the resources he needs, which is both funding and connecting him to an architect and an engineer, to figure out how to shore up that collapsing hillside. and the work is done primarily by Arturo and his neighbors and his family. We provide them with the funding to pay themselves to do the work and to purchase the materials they need. And then to build out a tasting room so that when the locals are coming to purchase what they would call Vino Mascow, right?

they've got a beautiful place to look out over that forest that's down that hillside but then that also helps divert some of that rainwater to ensure that it doesn't further erode the hillside and then to rebuild the pieces of the distillery that had been damaged and is that rainwater also needing to be captured because of you know the drought and and flood cycles is that also happening there well I'm going to say probably, meaning, you know, again, what I don't want to do is be the guy telling these mescaleros what their problems are and what they should be doing, right? Right. You know, like, it's so weird. I got so many people dinging me over these wildfires that were hitting Oaxaca over the last several months saying, hey, what are you doing about this?

What are you doing about this? And, you know, my point is I'm not doing anything about anything. somebody wants to come to me and say, hey, we need resources for this solution. I'm in, but I'm not going to be the guy going down telling everyone what they need to do to solve their problem. That's literally a problem of my consumption patterns, right? And a few of your friends. Yeah. The couple that I have.

In your SUV. Present company. In your SUV. Hey, can you decode, demystify? Is there anybody? making mescal anymore out of wild agave so and i don't know how many years ago was it that it was only wild agave correct am i am i right about that yes um you know if so when when i was racing the la carrera panamericana and driving very slowly in my race car through wahaka and there's just row after row

after grandma with a donkey turning the taona making the mescal right there and some you know two sides blue tarp, whatever, selling it, bringing your bottle, what have you. Was that all wild 2008? Was that all wild agave harvested there? Well, okay, so if you were looking at row after row, it wasn't. I mean, I'm just saying there was a road that we drove down, and there was one little mom and pop stand here, and then there's one little mom and pop stand there, and then there's another little mom and pop stand there, and it might have been because it was the main highway,

but it wasn't a fast highway. We were going mildly, you know, 40 miles an hour or something. Well, so what I can tell you is if it was 2008, you could have been looking at wild agave and you could have been looking at farmed agave. They've been farming agave intentionally for decades. And Espedan specifically in Wahagia, I think it was I think it was 1994 when they started the process of securing the denomination of origin for the word mescal, right? So the family, it's sort of like champagne, right? Exactly. I was just going to ask you to define that for the law. So in essence, I would argue that the Mexican government stole the word

Moscow from the people. And as a consequence, the people who can use that word, the vast majority of people who can use that word commercially legally look a lot more like me than the people that I like to go and visit in Mexico, right? And I think that's an important distinction. and it's important to recognize, which is not to say that nobody who's white should have a Moscow brain. I'm not suggesting that, but I am suggesting that if the purpose of a denomination of origin is to protect cultural heritage, which they claim it is, you need an awful lot of people who are actually part of that cultural heritage involved for that protection if you're truly protecting it. right now apply that to what the question that you're asking me which is in 2008 anybody making it

from wild agave today are they making from wild agave we're drinking so much mescal compared to what we were drinking in 2008 right so much and yet we're still only about 3.5 percent mescal is only about 3.5 percent by volume of what tequila is it's about a quarter of what tequila is it's about a quarter of what In sales and consumption. Not sales, but in terms of... Leadership or something. Yeah, exactly. Leaders shipped, yeah.

So, we're drinking so much more than we ever were that now we're in essence turning. If you go back to the conversation we were having about Halisco and Blue Weber, we're turning Waxaca into that exact same kind of monoculture that is so, pervasive in Halisco. And yet, you know, as we were talking about, there are five states in which you can make an agave spirit and certified as tequila. Well, there are, I think it's 10 now. I can't remember where we stand with Cinelloa, but I think there are 10 states in which you can make an agave spirit and certified as mescal.

And yet, 91% of it comes out of Oaxaca, and 90% of that is made from Espedine. We're creating the same kind of monoculture. And so to get back to the essence of that question, is anyone making it from wild agave? Yes, they are. And it's harder to find that. And so how do you find that possible? How do you find that? Right.

Well, get in the car with me. Yeah. But I will say this. Like there's a movement that's frustrating to me of people saying you shouldn't drink wild agave because we need to preserve it. And it's, it's, it misidentifies the issue. It suggests that somehow our consumption of wild agave in spirits is what's putting wild agave at risk. And it's not. So you've got two issues here.

One is the biodiversity of agave, right? There are two to three hundred different species. Forget about varieties of those species, but different species of agave. And, um, and we are drinking two. We're drinking Blue Weber, right? And we're drinking angustafolia. That's it. Wow.

And, right. And so when people say you're drinking too much wild agave, you're putting it at risk, that's not what's happening. What's happening is urban sprawl. What's happening is ranching to feed our growing human population. What's happening is literally the land on which a diverse selection of agave would be growing in the one. Wild. That wild land is being converted instead into farms of Blue Weber Agave in Halisco and Angustafolia in Oaxaca. So if you want to preserve wild agave, stop having kids. I've done that, folks.

You'll be happy to know that I can drink agave freely tonight because I've stopped having children. God bless you. God bless you. I feel much better now. If what you want is to preserve biodiverse agave, if what you want is to preserve a wide variety of agave species, drink more things that are not angustafolia and that are not blueweber. So let's jump into that. Let's get into like the cousins.

Yeah, the cousins and the other stuff, the agave, agave spirits that aren't named. And isn't there an issue with some folks are basically growing mescal but aren't going? It's like people are doing organic practices but aren't going for the organic certification because of X, Y, and Z. Is that also happening in the GAVE world that people are just not going through all the hoops to get those certifications of Regal? Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you certainly see that. But more often than not, I would argue that if you look at the number of families who are producing agave spirits and calling them Moscow, and when I go and visit them and I have the conversation with them, I will call it Moscow with them, but not when I'm doing a tasting here in Chicago because it's confusing for the average consumer.

but those families by and large aren't certifying because, A, they're geographically undesirable. They're outside of the denomination of origin. B, it would cost them too much. C, they're not trying to serve an international population. They call it Mascow. Arturo is certainly calling it Mascale down in his community in southern Halisco. But Halisca is not one of the states where you can make an agave spirit and call it Mascal. And again, getting back to what I saw in 2008, basically if you can't afford a glass bottle to put the stuff in and you're putting it in recycled soda pop bottles and recycled water bottles and recycled anything, you're probably not really worried about the origin and the naming of whatever's going in there to, you know, if gringoes are going to care about that.

And I say gringos, you know, loosely. Gringex. But yeah, I'm with you. So I would also say that. Always thoughtful, Lou. Trying to be inclusive. You know, so my friend Lalo Aalas down in Santa Catarina, Minas, Oaxaca, told me that the Mexican government had a couple of different tools that they used to measure or barometers with which they would measure whether a family was impoverished or not. And one was, did they have a toilet with flushable water?

and did they have actual floors like wood or cement floors in their home? And what he said to me was, you know, I've got a green toilet and I've got dirt floors because that's a better way to live. And obviously I can't know what was going on in the minds of the families that you visited. I don't know who you visited or where you visited. But I wouldn't assume that they couldn't afford new glass bottles. It could be that that was literally their way, you know, We talk about reduce, reuse, recycle, but we really just say recycle, and then we throw stuff into recycle bin and it gets thrown away.

Right. Right. That could have just been there reuse where they were trying to be kinder to the earth. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, maybe the head of sustainability of that little distillery said, you know what, let's just reuse these plastic bottles. I love that. It's a little shout out to my wife who does not listen to the show, who is the head of sustainability for our friends at Creighton barrel.

Hey, let's bring it home, Amigo. Let's bring it home. It's been really a delight having you here on Slow Baja. As you go about your travels in Mexico, what has all these years of traveling there, meeting this other culture where they are? You're so thoughtful. You're so thoughtful. What can you tell me about what you've learned from our neighbors to the south and how that's affected your soul and getting out with the rural folk.

It's, um, get philosophical here. Yeah, you know, honestly, I would say it's, it's part of what made me thoughtful. You know, I am, I'm not going to suggest that I was just all about me before doing this, right? I just told you I've been running nonprofit since 99 and was volunteering even when I was 22 years old, right? So a nice, thoughtful boy.

Well, you know, but there's, there's, there's, there's thoughtful and there's thoughtful. If you would ask a 22-year-old Lubank why he was volunteering as a mentor to a bunch of kids in a high school Jewish youth group, he would have said, well, I got so much out of it. This is literally what I told people. I got so much out of that youth group when I was a kid,

I wanted to be able to do the same for somebody else. And I could point to so many people who were so kind to me when I was a child that I have no doubt that that was the inspiration for why I started working in nonprofits. But it was visiting these families in rural Mexico. And there's literally dozens, if not hundreds of things that I could say about what I've learned in that process of visiting these families. But the biggest thing that I can say is, you know, the work, it gave me that perspective of the two things that I'm looking at. looking for in a nonprofit of underutilized resource and resource at risk. And I've been,

I've been working in education in Chicago since 2005. And I would have, 19 years, 19 years, we're 2024 here. Oh, thank you. Doing a little math. If you would ask me in 2005, you know, why was I working in education in low-income neighborhoods in Chicago, running nonprofit programs, not as a teacher, I would have said because every child deserves a chance. And I certainly believe that. But it was that work in rural Mexico that opened my eyes to the fact that that's a piece of it, but I think a more significant piece of it is every child in every low-income neighborhood in Chicago is another potential solution to the problems that we face. And we cannot afford to let that potential solution disappear because we're not going to put the right funds or the right efforts, the right resources into those communities.

It's if you think about the developing mind of a young child under pressure, that child having to figure out how to survive each day and thrive each day, that is an imagination that I think is in better position to figure out the problems that are putting our species, our society at risk, than the mind of a child who grows up. in less traumatic circumstances. I don't think we can afford to lose that potential solution. And so that's, you know, what did I gain from visiting rural Mexico? It was a bigger understanding, a better understanding, a more detailed understanding of how we need to live in this world in order to survive and thrive. Well, I think we're going to leave it right there, Lou. Sounds great. Hey, thank you, sincerely. Thank you, Michael, for the opportunity to speak to your audience. And I hope you and I get an opportunity to travel through Mexico together soon.

I don't know how many states I've been to. I've been to a lot of them, but I really want to see it at a much slower pace than to be the slowest race car in a very fast race. Lou, you host a podcast called Agave Road Trip. That helps Greenkecks Butterhead as better understand. Agave, Agave spirits in rural Mexico. Yep, that's the voice. That's the voice I love. Yeah, so that's an interesting listen. If you want to listen and learn all about the spirits that I love, and I hope you love as well.

If you're listening at this stage in the show, you probably do love all this stuff. Also, sacred agave. Sacredagave.org. Tell me. Yeah, sacredagave. org. Or on Instagram and Facebook at Sacredagave. sacred agave.org.

And that's where you can see the work that you're doing, contribute to the work you're doing, and learn about the work you're doing there. The work you're facilitating. You're not doing the work. You're facilitating it. Let's get this. It likes to be exact.

He uses another word. I use the word exact. All right. Well, we're going to say Osloego and see you later. And maybe have another sip of whatever it was in your bottle. I think we have to have that fort-a-lase it yet, my friend. Oh, well, yeah, the Fortaleza, because, you know, it's right here. And it's the Winter Blend 2022 repasados.

This is a pretty nice little bottle. Okay. Yeah, even if you don't like the stuff. All right, Lou, thanks, buddy. Thanks a lot, Michael. We did it. Hey, well, I hope you liked that show. Lou, getting deep and philosophical, agave and the people who grow agave.

Yeah, he's legit. That is real. That is from the heart. That was a beautiful conversation from the heart. And I've got to say thanks to Lou. He's sourcing some mescal for my Slow Baja winter expedition. You know, it's very hard, very, very hard now to get Fortaleza to share their fantastic tequila with me because the demand for it is so high.

So I'm starting to source other spirits to bring on my trips. And we have a little happy hour every night. We mix a little craft cocktail every night on the Slow Baja Adventures. So we're going to have some mescal and look. into a couple of other brands. So if you're involved in the spirit industry and you'd like to share something with Slow Baja and have its story told, reach out. If you like what I'm doing, I'm going to ask you to reach out to Spotify or to Apple podcast and drop a five-star review. Please, you know, it's been quite a while. You don't want to get too pointed about that,

but it has been quite a while since I've had a review. It really does help people find the show, and that is important. I'm back in the saddle now, making shows again, had some stuff going on. Just to be honest here, my dad passed recently, and last year there was a lot of stuff related to him that kept me from doing the slow Baja thing as much as I would like and sharing his stories as often as I would like, but I am firmly back in the saddle now. Looking forward to a trip here, heading to Baja next week. and I cannot wait. So please drop a five-star review.

If you've got tacos jingling in your pocket after the holidays, please reach out onto the donate link at slowbaha.com slash donate. Drop a taco in the tank. That really helps me keep the show going as well. And there are some stuff. There's some stuff. Hats and teas and stickers. It's in the Slow Baja shop.

If you're there, you're dropping tacos or you're perusing the website, checking out the Slow Baja adventures. Pop over to the shop, buy some merch. REP Slow Baja. Really appreciate it when folks share the photos of them here and there on their trips or I just got a photo today of some guys in Vermont doing a little snow wheeling and I saw a slow Baja sticker on the back of the truck. Really warms my heart seeing Slow Baja getting out and about like that. Okay, well, I'm going to tell you about my friend Mary McGee. She passed last last winter. a few months ago just before my dad. She was born just a week before my dad. And Mary McGee had a pal named Steve McQueen and Steve loved Baja. He really did. He really, really loved Baja. And he said,

you know, Mary, Baja is life. Anything that happens before or after. It's just waiting. Sitting here having a post-production. Post-production, Winters Blend 2022 Reposato from our friends at Fortaleza. It's amazing. It's amazing to me how Forteleza jogs the memory, Michael. It's allowed Lou to remember the distiller that I was asking him about, and he didn't want to leave without telling me a little bit about that. Yeah, so it was a, and I don't remember the year, and I honestly don't even remember which agave it was, but it was a spirit from Vago, Moscow, Moscow, Vago, by Aquilino Garcia. And Aquilino Garcia made, you know, the entire line of Vago's expressions, I really think it's rare that I don't like them quite a bit. And, but the

ones that I loved the most were made by Aquilino. And I'd always imagined I would have a chance to meet him. And, you know, to me, this is one of those lessons in life, right? When you you when you make that assumption that there will always be this thing there, this person there, this experience there that you can do, don't make that assumption, go and do it. He ended up passing away in the middle of the pandemic. He had a, not from the virus, but he had a car accident and unexpectedly was taken away. And, you know, when I would drink, like, Tio Ray was his son-in-law who also produces mescal for Bago.

And I met Tio Ray a couple of times, and I like his stuff just fine. But to me, when you taste Tio Ray's mescal, he tastes like he's a boxer. And when I tasted, when I taste, when I can find that. odd bottle that's been sitting by Aquilino from Vago it tastes to me like a dancer it's just so there's so much elegance in how he would put his flavors together and I really wanted to meet him and I wanted to have that experience and now I can only experience it when I find that odd bottle that that hasn't yet been consumed there's one right down the street I hope we get to

to consume a little bit soon, Lou. We should go back over there right after I re-up my parking. All right, Amigo. Okay, thanks. Thank you.