There are scientific names and common names for agaves … or magueys, to use the common name. But the common names lack commonality: A papalometl in one part of the Mixteca is a potatorum. Less than 40 kilometers away, papalometl will refer to a Cupreata. And even the scientific names get screwy. So what’s a nerd to do?

Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest evolutionary biologist Daniel Moen.

Episode Notes

Thanks to Google Books for the agave image on this week’s cover, which comes from El Maguey: Memoria Sobre el Cultivo y Beneficio de sus Productos (1901) by Jose Carmen Segura.

Shout outs this episode to Michaela at Waffle House #431 in Tucson, the Agave Heritage Festival, mezcalero Ildefonso Macedas Ginez, mezcalero Amando Alvarado Alvarez, Jason Paul Cox and Cinco Sentidos, and Hidden Rose Apples.

A recent episode of the VinePair podcast, titled "Mezcal’s Continued Search for Mainstream Success,” feels to me like it was riddled with inaccuracies. And for some reason, it also feels to me like it stands in stark contrast to the recently released 2025 numbers from Comercam, the largest of the bodies certifying Mezcal. So I asked one of my favorite numbers gabbers, Marissa Paragano, to gab about that in this gabfest episode of Agave Road Trip!

Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest Marissa Paragano (AKA the eye-rolling, not-easily-offended, kind-of-5’2” Tequila Encyclopedia) of The TequiLadies Show and The Tequila That Cares Foundation.

Episode Notes

Marissa is a board member of Tequila That Cares, a philanthropic organization bringing positive change to the agave spirits industry!

Listen to The VinePair Podcast: “Mezcal’s Continued Search for Mainstream Success.” And do also check out The Cocktail College Podcast: “Mezcal’s Untold Past, Soaring Present, and Fragile Future”!

Read Comercam’s 2026 report, covering Mezcal (and uncertified agave spirits) commercial numbers for 2025.

Shout outs this episode to the national parks, Kegel pelvic-floor exercises, GameStop, Auburn, Alabama, Jelly Babies, and on-premise and off-premise popcorn sales!

We’ve talked about agave straws in previous episodes, but I’ve been spending more time digging into them. And more than that, I’ve been spending time reading about – and now speaking with – Dr. Sandra Pascoe Ortiz, who has developed a plastic that is compostable and leaves behind no microplastics. So is this a solution for our plastics problem?

Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest Linda Sullivan of seynasecreto and wisdom from researcher and chemical engineer Dr. Sandra Pascoe Ortiz.

Episode Notes

Listen to “Are agave straws really better than plastic?,” “Agave Road Trip,” season 4, episode 37.

Read “Microplastics Everywhere,” Harvard Medicine magazine, Spring 2023.

Shout outs this episode to D2W, CO2, and R2D2.

Ad Links

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There are places that have massive collections of beautiful, small-batch agave spirits, but having the bottles isn’t the same as understanding them. And having those bottles, which are often expensive, requires additional expense in training staff. Or, anyway, are most likely going to realize their financial potential with training. But … who does that? Where do agave geeks go to have the geekiest conversations?

Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest evolutionary biologist Daniel Moen.

Thanks to photographer Russell Lee (1903-1986) for this week’s cover photo, titled, “Proprietor of barroom near Crowley, Louisiana. This man is a Cajun.” Photo retrieved from the Library of Congress.

Shout outs this episode to Michaela at Waffle House #431 in Tucson, the Agave Heritage Festival, Lamata Spirits, Mezonte, John Douglass of Pretty Decent, Fausto Romero of El Acabo Raicilla, and Ivan Vasquez of Madre.

I find myself saying “multi-generational wisdom” pretty frequently, in reference to these communities I get to visit in rural Mexico. But when they start talking about how the moon affects their production of agave spirits, or the presence of a pregnant woman, I kind of laugh it off. So what am I missing, where is the truth, and how do I reconcile my own hypocrisy?

Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest Linda Sullivan of seynasecreto and wisdom from raicillero Paulo Rodriguez and Ana Elvia Rodriguez Lorenzo.

How often have you heard or read that a brand of Tequila or Mezcal is only using quality agaves? That makes me wonder about those poor, down-market agaves. They deserve love, too, don’t they? And what makes them different from the good agaves? Brix? Years?

Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest Raicillero Fausto Romero of El Acabo Raicilla and Raicilla Asil.

Last episode I talked with Linda Sullivan about the tumbado process of harvesting agave. This episode … also about tumbado, but with Paulo Rodriguez, the raicillero who brought the method back to Chacala, Jalisco! So, why two episodes about the same thing? I was maybe a bit under the influence when I recorded the episode with Paulo, forgot we’d recorded it, got home, and recorded last week’s episode with Linda. It’s a Deja Lou episode of Agave Road Trip!

Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest Raicillero Paulo Rodriguez, interpreted by Greg Rutkowski, and Raicillero Omar Alejandro Cruz Ortega, interpreted by Roy Sierra.

I was listening to Tim McKirdy’s podcast “Mezcal’s Untold Past, Soaring Present, and Fragile Future,” and he talks about an agave harvesting process called tumbado, where you disconnect the plant from its roots and let it sit there in the field. It was said to be an old practice that had been lost. Even in the podcast, he said he only heard about this from one guy, so I thought, yeah, probably not really a thing. And then I met Paulo Rodriguez in Chacala, Jalisco.

Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest Linda Sullivan of seynasecreto and wisdom from Raicillero Paulo Rodriguez, interpreted by Greg Rutkowski.

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