To truly understand and appreciate the heritage and cultural significance of the agave plants growing throughout the Tucson basin, you could attend any of the dozen or so lectures at the 17th annual Agave Heritage Festival this weekend.
Or you could drink.
We're not talking about slamming a shot of tequila or sipping a frozen margarita, which serves its own purpose, we suppose.
We're talking about taking in the essence of the agave and its history and transporting your senses back to those early inhabitants of our desertscape who discovered how to get the most uses for the popular leafy plants.
Mosey up to the bar of Doug and Amy Smith's Crisol Bar, the nighttime incarnation of their popular Exo Roast Co. coffee shop at 196 W. Simpson St. in Barrio Viejo, and let Doug Smith, the longtime anthropologist, introduce you to mezcal.
Smith
"Mezcal has always been a little bit more interesting in general," he will tell you, clarifying that due to the industrialization and mass production beginning in the 1970s, tequila has become less interesting and less diverse than mezcal. "Tequila, technically, is a mezcal, but mezcal, as we kind of know it as consumers and as the industry portrays it, is much more artisanal; it's much more diverse."
Southern Arizona agave expert Gary Nabhan suggests you approach tasting mezcal and other agave-derived spirits the same way you would wine: through your nose.
“Some of that hits your nose even before it crosses your lips. Smelling the gourd cup or 'jicara' or shot glass is important," he explained. "Smell is our most intuitive nonverbal sense. It triggers memories that are in our subconscious."
Rule No. 1, he said: Savor, don’t slam.
“Doing a shooter is like throwing it away," said Nabhan, who grows 55 different species of agave on his property in Patagonia. "Slowly savor it. I just do it with ice and sometimes with a little lemon juice or different salts and it might take me 15 minutes to drink the equivalent of a shot glass because it’s kind of dreamy."
On Thursday, April 10, the first night of the four-day festival that runs through Sunday, April 13, LA's Madre Oaxacan Restaurant & Mezcaleria will take over Smith's bar in the first of four bar takeover events. The restaurant in West Hollywood, one of four locations, is among Los Angeles's most prominent Oaxacan restaurants in part because of its mezcal cocktail program.
"I think that's the best example of how the festival successfully mixes the drinking part with the education part, because the consumer is going to get several examples of different mezcal at any one given event," Smith said. "But they're also going to get all the education behind those spirits so that they can envision the places where they come from. They can envision the production process, all the hard work that goes into that thing. So it's a really nice way in which you can sort of treat your senses by tasting really good mezcals, but you can also learn the background. How did it get here? Who made it? And these are old, old traditions."
The takeovers and tasting events prove one of Nabhan's primary points when it comes to fruits of the plant: “Agaves are not only good to drink, they are good to think.”
Gary Nabhan won a James Beard Media Award this year as co-author of a book on agave. He grows 55 different species of agave on his property in Patagonia.
"Even if you don't eat or drink it, agaves are part of our identity," said Nabhan, co-author of the James Beard Award-winning book "Agave Spirits: The Past, Present, and Future of Mezcals." "I mean, we have more murals with agaves. We have more front yard agave. We actually have more kinds or species of agave-centric nurseries and museums and botanical gardens and parks than any city in the U.S. or Mexico. We've just been this hub for agave diversity for a long, long time, and it's part of our identity, as much as saguaros. ... Phoenix and other cities, of course, can claim an affinity with saguaros, but they can't top us in terms of how much agaves are a distinctive part of our character."
Nabhan, a retired University of Arizona professor who has been studying and professing agave's virtues and history since 1974, has long been affiliated with the Agave Heritage Festival. This year, he's moderating a panel discussion on "Cross Border Sustainable Agave Agriculture & Cultivation" at noon Saturday, April 12, at Club Congress, 311 E. Congress St. in Hotel Congress.
The panel includes Rachel Burke of the Austin, Texas-based Bat Conservation International; Francesca Claverie of the Patagonia-based Borderlands Restoration Network; and Julie Figueras from the Jalisco, Mexico, small-batch tequila maker The Lost Explorer.
"The plant has its own mystique. It attracts people because of its history and cultural connections," he explained.
For Tucson and Southern Arizona, those cultural connections tie us to Mexico and our shared borderlands. It's the connective tissue reflected in our community, "from the music to the arts," Nabhan said.
"It also gives us a sense that we are a desert people that face the same kind of challenges of heat and drought that the plants do," he added. "I think the most important thing that this festival is designed around is to renew our cultural reference with our Mexican counterparts. Tucson's identity is so much linked to the frontier of Mexico for upwards of 5,500 years. We need to renew that especially at a time when it is being challenged by political entities.”
This year's Agave Heritage Festival will include 11 discussions and a screening of the documentary film "Children of Agave," in collaboration with the ongoing Arizona International Film Festival.
The festival's deep dive into agave's heritage and history, including hosting discussions with international experts, growers and makers, was not part of the early events that began in 2008.
Back then, the Agave Festival was centered on the cocktail space.
"We originally did Agave Fest over Cinco de Mayo," said longtime Tucson mixologist Aaron DeFeo of the inaugural event that he initiated. "It just kind of like made sense from ... an American stance of like, oh, we want to get people interested in agave spirits. The best way to do it is to do it on Cinco de Mayo, which is when everyone drinks tequila, right? Parties, right? But obviously, we weren't as in tune with the fact that Cinco de Mayo isn't really a relevant Mexican holiday; it's an American thing that we do."
Sampling agave spirits is part of the annual Agave Heritage Festival, which returns this weekend.
DeFeo was the beverage manager at Hotel Congress when he dreamed up the idea, but after he switched jobs a couple of years later and went to work for Casino del Sol, Todd Hanley, the former Hotel Congress CEO who is now operations and development manager for the nonprofit Watershed Management Group, kept it going with the expanded focus on agave heritage.
The three-time James Beard-nominated DeFeo left his native Tucson in 2018 to open Little Rituals cocktail lounge in Phoenix. On Friday, April 11, he returns to his old stomping grounds at Hotel Congress when Little Rituals takes over the Hotel Congress Lobby Bar from 9:30-11:30 p.m.
He said he plans to bring two tequila cocktails and one made with mezcal.
"There's a lot of interest in mezcal and in agave spirits. It's a hot category ... that really screams for authenticity," DeFeo said. "Tucson is a place that provides that, from its connections to Mexico and its connections to the culture. ... We're surrounded by agave everywhere."
The 17th annual Agave Heritage Festival includes events throughout downtown and beyond. Most are free, although the dinners and tastings are ticketed. Here are some of the highlights; for a complete schedule, visit agaveheritagefestival.com. You have to be at least 21 to attend events that involve tastings.
Drinking 🍸
Fourteen tasting events presented by a dozen bars and restaurants are scheduled throughout the weekend starting with Thursday's Noche de Mezcal featuring Tequila Ocho at Playground, 278 E. Congress St., from 5-11 p.m. There is a cost for the tastings; check the schedule for details.
Tastings will be held at:
- Cruda Mariscos & Oyster Bar, 31. N. Scott Ave., with Lost Explorer
- Sonoran Moonshine Co., 124 E. Broadway, with Los Cantiles 1905
- The Monica, 40 E. Congress St., with PM Spirits
- R Bar, 350 E. Congress St., behind the Rialto Theatre, with Mezcal Vago
- AC Marriott, 151 E. Broadway, with Alma Del Jaguar
- The Century Room, 311 E. Congress St. at Hotel Congress, with Banhez
- La Chingada Cocina Mexicana, 110 E. Pennington St., with Del Maguey
- Batch, 118 E. Congress St., with La Gritona
- Highwire, 30 S. Arizona Ave., with Cambio Tequila
- Tabu Bar, 128 E. Congress St., with Union Mezcal
- Unicorn Zebra, 82 S. Stone Ave., with Neta
Bar takeovers feature tastings with a side of education. With every pour you get a lesson in the heritage and history of the spirit. There is a cost to participate:
- LA's Madre Oaxacan Restaurant & Mezcaleria takes over Crisol Bar, 196 W. Simpson St. from 9-11 p.m. Thursday
- Hermosillo chef and mixologist Jesús Alfredo Pérez Blanco takes over the Monsoon Room at JoJo's Restaurant, 76 W. Washington St., from 8-10 p.m. Friday.
- Phoenix's Little Rituals from Tucson native Aaron DeFeo takes over the Hotel Congress Lobby Bar, 311 E. Congress St., from 9:30-11:30 p.m. Friday
- Phoenix's BarCoa Agaveria takes over Sonoran Moonshine, 124 E. Broadway, from 10 p.m.-midnight Saturday
Dining 🍽
The Agave Heritage Festival is hosting a trio of agave-centric culinary events. For details and tickets, visit agaveheritagefestival.com/culinary.
Chef Ryan Clark is spearheading the Blues, Brews & BBQ Brunch Agave Takeover on Sunday, April 13, at The Canyon Club at Loews Ventana Canyon Resort.
- Agave Heritage Dinner, 6-9 p.m. Friday, Maynards Kitchen and Bottle Shop, 400 N. Toole Ave. "A Culinary Tribute to the Sonoran Desert," presented by Maynards’ Executive Chef Roderick LeDesma. The curated crafted menu highlights "the rich bounty of the Sonoran Desert," paired with La Gritona Reposado Tequila from the female- and family-owned distillery led by Melly Barajas. $196 per person.
- The Canyon Club at Loews Ventana Canyon Resort is hosting an agave festival edition of its popular "Blues, Brews & BBQ" brunch" from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday at Loews, 7000 N. Resort Drive, with Chef Ryan Clark. $64 adults, $32 for kids 6-12 and $16 for kids 5 and younger.
- Tequila Ocho & Mezcal Vago Heritage Dinner, 5 p.m. Sunday at Bata, 35 E. Toole Ave. The culinary team led by chef-owner Tyler Fenton and featuring Chris Simmons and Andres Cruz pairs its award-winning cuisine with choice of a mezcal or tequila paired cocktail and two other spirit neat pour pairings. For price, visit batatucson.com.
Discussions 📝
One of the ways the Agave Heritage Festival distinguishes itself from other similar festivals is through its extraordinary lecture and demonstration events, from the agave planting at Mission Garden, 946 W. Mission Lane off South Grande Avenue, at 8 a.m. Thursday to Saturday's Lifetime Career Award Lecture at Mission Garden honoring Paul and Suzy Fish's pioneering research on ancient agave cultivation.
For a complete list of lectures and demonstrations, visit agaveheritagefestival.com/agave-culture.
Several events are being held at Mission Garden, which grows several species of agave.
Some highlights include:
- "Agave Roast Pit Uncovering," a discussion on how to roast agave plants for food, at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Mission Garden
- "Howard Scott Gentry Lecture and Award Ceremony," honoring Diana Pinzón and Faby Torres Monfils, 3 p.m. Thursday at Corbett Event Space, 209 E. Seventh St. The award was established by Gary Nabhan and the Agave Heritage Festival to recognize leaders in binational collaborative research on agave conservation and use.
- Stanley Rodriguez will explore the Kumeyaay practices of agave roasting at 10:30 a.m. Friday at Mission Garden. Rodriguez is a member of the Kumeyaay Santa Ysabel Band of the Iipay Nation in California, where he is president of the nation's community college.
