Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Did cascanes create the world's most impossible problem? Last year, nuestas Tricias Batch 1 became the first distilled spirit ever to receive 100 point score from wine enthusiasts. Think about that. Not tequila, not agave spirit, but any spirit. A perfect score. And when you get a perfect score, that creates a problem. It's like releasing a number one song on your first hit. And now you got to come back and top it. So, so what did they do next? They brought us batch two. All right, so here we are. I'm so glad they sent this out to me. This is bottle number two. This packaging that they do on these. Unbelievable. And look at that. They put the Wine Enthusiast 100 point score card right on the bottle. And I love the label. Each label, like tells a little bit of a story. This is the first one. It has Umberto on there. The guy who makes this juice out in this really little teeny, awesome town that I got to visit with these guys. And this one came out at 47% ABV. He uses this incredible shredder that's hooked up to an old Chevy engine and it shoots the agave against the wall. And that is him running that awesome shredder. And I wish you could see the back of the label. It has an additional picture inside of there that looks like it's a group of people standing in front of the Chevy. So very, very cool. I'm really excited about trying this one. I did get the chance to have Wayne on the show recently. Wayne Dr. With Wayne global brand ambassador for cascanes. And a little bit before that I had JP on where we talked about everything, cascanes and how the brand got started. And it's a really awesome story. So I'd say, hey, go back and listen to the interview with JP and with drink with Wayne. We kind of tell the whole story. So let's dive into this and get it in the glass. This is batch two. I'm excited about trying it from the bottle. I've had some samples. I did get the chance to drink this directly off the still when we were there back in January. And to get to see they do this and the work that goes behind it, it is as ancestral and old school as you can think of. They're running an old school homemade hand built autoclave that is wood fired from there. Those agaves are going into this crazy shredder in the back of this truck and it shoots it out against this ceramic tile wall. They scoop up those agaves from there and they put them in this giant tub, and they hand squeeze all of them. They let that sit there, ferment for as long as it takes. All natural, no yeast added. Just nature be nature. From there, that juice is going to go into a wood fired still and from that into a second wood fired still. So we're not talking about a manufactured process where you sweep the floors at the end of the day. We're talking about a jungle juice that is made in a very primitive way. I'm telling you, I can smell it from here. That's amazing. So let's dive into the nose of this thing. Cooked agave, a little bit of a funkiness, a little bit of chocolate. There's a real vegetal note there as well. I've been doing this training kit on my nose, and I'm trying to now pick out these different aromas that I get and I get. I. I think it's asparagus. There's a touch of orange peel in there too, and there's a really nice minerality. All right, let's dive into the taste of this one. On the taste, cooked agave all the way. Like, that's this really nice roasted agave flavor that's there. And then that a little bit of that citrus, like, kind of came through. And then there's that earthiness and that vegetal ness. That's not asparagus in the taste, like it was in the nose. I do pick up a little bit of the chocolate as it's kind of going into the finish. See? So the ABV on this one is 48.1. So they tipped it up a little bit to 96.2 proof. The flavors are still very similar. And when you think about how they're making these in a whole bunch of little bitty small batches and. And blending this together at the end of the whole process to create this batch too. That the flavors can be so similar yet a little bit different is just what it's. Agave spirits, blow me away. Now, remember, this isn't a tequila. This is a destilato di agave. In other words, they're not following a complete CRT certified process to make this just because the place where they're making it couldn't qualify with the crt. It's that much of a really cool, primitive jungle area. It's just badass, if you ask me. I'm going to dive into this again. Cooked agave, this earthiness, that citrus. I actually, I said chocolate in the first one. I want to say it's almost like A. A little hint of coffee in the second taste. That vegetableness is there. There's a nice pepper in the finish. It just kind of heats up. There's a little note of that citrus. What. What a fantastic flavor. This is a fun one to drink. It's a great bottle to have. I can see why the first one got 100 points. I doubt the next one even gets submitted, because how do you make sure lightning strikes twice? It's gotta be pretty crazy. So let's answer the question. I started with. Did they create the impossible problem?
[00:05:03] I don't think they did, because batch two is absolutely amazing. It doesn't copy batch one. It doesn't come out that it's way better than batch one. But what it does show is they weren't chasing a score when they did this. They're chasing an amazing spirit, and they did that with this one. Great agave. Awesome production, Incredible detail in the way they make this, especially in this really cool label. And really go back and showing Umberto, the guy who makes this, that he makes an amazing juice. And it's one of the reasons Cascanes is such a great tequila. Today, after getting a chance to visit, after seeing all of the good things they do in the town that they're from, utilizing the water, giving back to the city, utilizing this special water in every batch, it's pretty impressive. And Cascades has really shown me that they're not just a brand, they're. They're actually a movement of good tequila and amazing agave spirits in this case. So if you haven't had their product, definitely go check it out. I'm going to probably do maybe some kind of blind with batch one, Batch two, and see what my thoughts are in the blind. But I got to give them credit. Going back to their roots. Nuestres, making batch one and then making batch two is phenomenal. Guys, I want to say thanks for being on the podcast and sharing your stories, and thanks again for these bottles. Cheers. Drink responsibly. Man, I hope you're drinking something as Maisie as this stuff. Have a great night.
