Tucson has a lot of love for this spiny character.
The first Agave Heritage Week kicks off at Hotel Congress this week with a series of events highlighting the indigenous plant’s “spirited” influence on our culinary legacy. What began as a tribute to tequila eight years ago is now a full-week homage to everything agave.
“The agave plant has such deep roots in the culture and history of the Mexican people that you can’t quantify how great this product is without understanding the actual story of the plant and how it impacts the entire Mexican culture,” said Todd Hanley, Hotel Congress’ general manager. “Mezcal is as close to farm to table as you can get in the world of spirits.”
Agave Heritage Week advances an event that began almost a decade ago by certified mixologist Aaron Defeo as a tequila-tasting, but its popularity has enabled Hotel Congress to grow it into a week of seminars, tastings, art and entertainment, partnering internationally with the Mexican Consulate and Vamos a Tucson to make it happen, Hanley said.
The ultimate goal, Hanley said, is to have people see Tucson and the agave plant as natural partners. Though the week culminates with an uber-tequila tasting and live music-Agave Fest on Saturday, May 7, the agave’s culinary side takes center stage on Friday, when Chef Janos Wilder hosts the second annual Agave Dinner at The Carriage House.
“It’s going to be super fun,” said Wilder, who will hold the dinner at his newly-open downtown event space. “We don’t do these very often. This menu will probably never be seen again.” The five-course meal, by a team of chefs from Maynards Market & Kitchen and other restaurants, infuses the agave plant throughout the entrees and crafted cocktails.
Wilder takes on the third course for the night, preparing lamb two ways in a dish that also includes his signature Native Seeds/SEARCH mole. “This is a mole I developed years ago,” said Wilder, who has devoted himself to the native “flavor profiles” of the Southwest since he opened his first downtown restaurant in 1983. “I began to slowly open my eyes to where I lived … to the gastronomic history here, to what I call the cultural culinary icons of the region.”
The dinner will also include talks by master mezcalier Sergio Inurrigarro and Rodrigo Medellín, a UNAM ecologist known as the “bat man of Mexico”— bats pollinate agaves. Wilder said Medellin will explain the future of mezcal production that could be more bat-friendly.
Tickets are $95 per person and benefit Native Seeds/SEARCH, a nonprofit that aims to conserve indigenous seed lines in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. For more information and to buy tickets to Agave Heritage Week events and seminars, please visit the hotelcongress.com
