and now to a far away place

Alambique Serrano Altos Esteres (High Esters) Oaxan Reposado Cane Rum T8KE Exclusive Batch

This release is our first from a really exciting privilege I had this January. I headed south of the border to Oaxaca, Mexico – a locale I typically buy agave spirits in. But, as you all know, many delicious things are distilled all over the world. In the mountains of Santa Maria Tlalixtac, the Krassel brothers are producing incredible cane rums. This is our first release from that trip and it’s a doozy. 

Santa Maria Tlalixtac is only about 100 miles from the city center in Oaxaca, but the journey would take us just shy of 8 hours to get there due to road conditions, narrowness, and the remoteness of the village. Alambique Serrano founder Jason Cox, who also owns and runs 5 Sentidos, briefed us well ahead of time for the experience we were in for, and we had all agreed. I packed up a backpack, my camera, some water, a little bug spray and we headed off. 

The road was rocky and rough and yet it was rewarding when we made it to the village.

We headed immediately to the Krassel’s compound/distillery and got right to the rum. Why wait? 

At their distillery, the Krassel’s have produced for decades. They are perched at a high altitude on a very steep hillside. Cane grows really well here, and so to them, it made sense to build and distill where the cane were. It was steep.

I’m not in bad shape, I’m no athlete, but the thinner air, the mud, and the verticality of the hillside meant I spent just as much time trying not to slip and fall as I spent taking in the incredible views. 

It was incredible to finally be here. It’s not a region untouched by the human hand but for someone who has lived all over the country, I’ve never lived in a place so open and tropical and natural as this. Birds – such as the tropical pico canoa (toucan!) flew above our heads. Snakes, bugs, all manner of rodents and lizards popped about and the sounds of the area were astonishing. There was a peace out there that was intoxicating, and because I visited in January I also got to enjoy the experience with a few less mosquitos than were to be anticipated. 

The Krassel’s distillery is a wild place, concocted through early century old scientific and distilling understanding and the rugged ingenuity that keeping machinery running in such a remote location takes. 

Here they are harvesting cane from their fields, pressing the cane to capture the juice and then immediately fermenting it through spontaneous, open tank fermentation. The fermented cane is then distilled in a rugged alambique style still and condensed in metal drums for capture in neutral drums. Two of the brothers did the majority of the talking and walked us through their facility. It was wondrous how much they are doing in what is a very stark, simple facility. And yet, it goes to show that the materials and the hand of the maker always mean the difference in distillation. 

We’d go on to taste about 40 things. Unaged things (more on that later), aged things, different casks, and more. Today we’re talking about Altos Esteros – a high ester rum that was distilled here at this very place and matured for 11 months in a red wine cask. Sampled by myself and a few dear friends who head up Aficionados, we got to work. 

We made several selections that day.

The first is here this week and that’s where our deep dive takes a quick pause. There are more parts to this expedition that continue through the day, the night and the trip to the cane fields the next day.