Mezcal. In recent years, the oldest spirit in the Americas has been reinvented as an expensive positional good that has become popular among booze connoisseurs and the mixologists who use it as a cocktail ingredient. Yet, unlike most high–end distillates, mezcal is typically produced by and for subsistence farming communities, often under extremely challenging conditions. Greene visits remote, marginalized villages in the states of Oaxaca and Guerrero, meeting maestros mezcaleros who distill their drinks using local agaves and production techniques honed through generations of mezcal-making families.

Seen through Greene’s eyes, mezcal becomes a spirit of contradictions—both a liquid language celebrating community identity and craftsmanship, and a luxury export undergoing a global, gold–rush style surge. The Mezcal Rush is an exploration of the cultural, social, and emotional complications that can arise when an artisanal product makes its way across borders.

Author: Granville Greene
Publisher: Counterpoint
Page Count: 256pp
Size: 6.25 x 9 x 1
Notes: hardcover, color
Release Date: March 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-1619028449