of tokayo cocktail At Mirate, a Mexican restaurant and bar in Los Angeles, sparks conversation with a glass.From a mole The drink always elicits a reaction, right down to the shiny golden whole cricket garnish perched atop a large rock.But if there’s one ingredient bartender Max Reis hopes will arouse his guests’ curiosity, it’s His own “Nogabe” syrupHe calls this “a sustainable answer to agave.” Tocayo features a generous amount of dough made with Demerara sugar and orange blossom honey to mimic the rich, mellow sweetness of the real thing.
Reis may have been one of the first to coin the term “nogave,” but he’s not the only one to criticize agave ethics. In recent years, the beverage industry has become increasingly aware of the dangers of mass-produced agave spirits. Tequila shortage It sent producers and fraternity presidents alike into a panic. Today, the world’s thirst for tequila is so strong that nearly every celebrity, from George Clooney to Kendall Jenner, has their own brand and is vying for a piece of the ever-growing tequila stock. I am. Multi-billion dollar tequila market. But continuing to meet demand proved problematic on all fronts.
Agave is a large succulent plant that is native to the deserts of the Americas and thrives with the help of important pollinators, the proboscis bat. Compared to other industrial cash crops such as corn, the blue agave used for tequila grows slowly, taking at least seven years to fully mature. Under pressure to meet quotas, agave farmers across Mexico have resorted to harvesting more and more immature agave plants before they bloom, depriving bats of an important food source and the only way wild agave plants can reproduce. ing. In a healthy ecosystem, bats spread diverse and resilient genes from plant to plant. However, agave grown by clonal shoots in large fields, similar to the vast fields grown for tequila, are genetically identical and therefore more susceptible to disease and drought. This leaves producers vulnerable to large losses, as they were in the 1990s. When an agave farm is devastated by a deadly fungal infection.
Equally troubling for bartenders like Reis is that unripe agave contains far less sugar, which increases the need for chemical treatments and additives when making syrups. He points out that agave syrup and nectar were first introduced in the United States as a healthy alternative to traditional sugar. But today, store-bought agave’s reputation as a natural “superfood” is largely just marketing.
The agave chorus has grown louder as problems in the agave industry have become more visible. More bartenders are combining their own alternatives. Among them is the winner of Netflix’s first Bartender. drink master, LP O’Brien whose classic margarita riff wowed the judges in 2022. Served with salt bubbles and lime Jell-O wedges. beyond the glass ceiling Made using two types of tequila and pineapple nectar nogave syrup.
“The goal in that moment was to bring awareness to elements of margaritas that a lot of people don’t think about,” O’Brien says.
When O’Brien, like many other burgeoning bartenders, first entered the industry, he was trained to make margaritas with the standard: tequila, agave syrup, and lime juice. This is a template popularized in his 90s by Julio Bermejo, the creator of. tommy’s margarita, use agave sweetener instead of orange liqueur. But now that she’s more established, O’Brien avoids agave syrup. Not only for sustainability reasons, but also because I just don’t like the taste.
“When creating an exceptional cocktail, the goal for me is to emphasize the underlying spirit,” she says. O’Brien added that the highly processed agave chunks currently on the market detract from the “superlative quality and labor” that goes into craft tequila. Her Pineapple Her Nectar Her Nogave Her Syrup, on the other hand, is made with a blend of cooked fruit chunks and other sweeteners, using more complementary natural ingredients.
On the production side, efforts to curb exploitation of the agave plant in Mexico are making slow progress. The Tequila Exchange Project isbat friendly” The certification program stipulates that 5 percent of the agave plants used in a brand’s production must be fully mature and flowering.Podcaster Lou Bank also founded sacred The nonprofit raises money to support agave-growing communities in rural Mexico, according to its website.
The bank notes that most of the agave syrup available in the United States is highly processed, especially as a small number of small, family-owned specialty growers are entering the market, partly through pilot programs. It emphasizes that it would be a mistake to ignore this category as a whole. Written by Sacred. In Mexico’s Hidalgo state, a nonprofit organization is working to support producer families. pulque, a milky agave spirit that predates tequila, and developing syrups made from the plants in small-batch operations. “Each batch is unique, delicious, authentic and true to the traditions of these communities,” Bank says. “So to suggest that all Agave His syrups are industrial would be another hurdle for the Pulque family, which is already struggling to maintain its cultural heritage.”
Additionally, more distilleries are considering producing agave spirits outside of Mexico, which could alleviate some of the strain on Mexico’s deserts. (However, like Scotch in Scotland and bourbon in the United States, Mexican law states that tequila can only be produced in the state of Jalisco and some other Mexican municipalities.) Succulent meats like agave, which have a low moisture content The plant is attractive in agriculturally intensive places like California.industrial use 40 percent of the state’s already strained water supply. To that end, Tequila Raiders editor Pedro Wolf said the California Agave Council is one of the largest organizations investing in agave production in the country. And while it’s “still years away from actually distilling spirits,” the company is currently growing agave in hopes of entering the market within the next 10 years.
We may still be a long way from a full-fledged Nogabe revolution, but the sap of change is flowing. Whenever a customer stumbles upon “nogabe” on Milate’s menu, Reis takes advantage of the educational opportunity, but keeps the syrup story “short and sweet.”
“It’s bad for the guests and bad for the environment,” he sums up. “So we created our own.”
