{"id":1055,"date":"2025-12-02T17:25:47","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T23:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/?p=1055"},"modified":"2025-12-02T17:25:47","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T23:25:47","slug":"the-agave-harvest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/the-agave-harvest\/","title":{"rendered":"Agaves, Tequila and Mezcal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><sup>(Photograph = Agave tequiliana\u00a0production farm, Jay8085)<\/sup><\/p>\n<h2>Introduction<\/h2>\n<p>Tequila is a distilled spirit made from Agave tequiliana, a narrow-leaved blue agave. Mezcal (mescal) is made from fermented and distilled agave too, but it can be made from various\u00a0agaves.<\/p>\n<h3>The Details<\/h3>\n<p>Mescal is\u00a0made from\u00a0agaves grown in multiple\u00a0parts of Mexico. Much, but not all, mezcal\u00a0is made near\u00a0Oaxaca, either from a single agave distillate or a blend of distilled spirits. Most commonly, mezcal\u00a0is made from the espad\u00edn\u00a0agave (A. angustifolia\u00a0or A. vivipara?). Tequila is made only\u00a0from A. tequiliana\u00a0mostly grown in Jalisco state (a few areas outside of Jalisco are allowed to call their product tequila too).\u00a0Thus, all tequilas\u00a0are mescal, but not all mezcals are tequila.<\/p>\n<p>Tequila can be 110 proof (55% alcohol) but is sold at about 80 proof in the United States. Mezcal can also vary in alcohol content, but it is similar to tequila. The various liquors must adhere to certain standards to be marketed. For instance, mescal must be made from 80% agave sugars, whereas tequila is only required to contain 51% agave sugars.<\/p>\n<p>Mezcal types vary according to where and how the plants were grown: high altitude, shale soil, wild, etc. In addition to espad\u00edn, there are several other &#8220;flavors&#8221; or types of mezcal, including tobal\u00e1, tobaziche, and tepeztate. The mescal types seem to be analogous to wine varieties.<\/p>\n<p>Flavor is affected by several factors such as percent agave sugars, ageing, and smokiness.<\/p>\n<h4>Video: Mezcal\u00a0Harvest (MadhaveAgave)<\/h4>\n<div style=\"width: 768px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-1055-1\" width=\"768\" height=\"455\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"http:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/The-Agave-Harvest.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/The-Agave-Harvest.mp4\">http:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/The-Agave-Harvest.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Photograph = Agave tequiliana\u00a0production farm, Jay8085) Introduction Tequila is a distilled spirit made from Agave tequiliana, a narrow-leaved blue agave. Mezcal (mescal) is made from fermented and distilled agave too, but it can be made from various\u00a0agaves. The Details Mescal is\u00a0made from\u00a0agaves grown in multiple\u00a0parts of Mexico. Much, but not all, mezcal\u00a0is made near\u00a0Oaxaca, either [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1066,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[35,34,27],"class_list":["post-1055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other-topic","category-succulents","tag-agave","tag-mexico","tag-uses-for-plants"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/agave-tequiliana-jay8085b.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1055"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6772,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055\/revisions\/6772"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}