I thought this episode was going to be about blind tastings. And it is. Or, at least, it starts that way. But when you’re talking with Marissa, aka @tequilaencyclopedia , you rarely take as straight a path as you’d expect. So if you want to listen to a conversation about that … or about CostCo … or about the Agavos Awards … or how much I paid Marissa to join me on a trip to 818 Tequila, this episode is for you!

Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest Marissa Paragano of The Tequiladies.

Episode Notes

Marissa is also a board member of Tequila That Cares, a philanthropic organization bringing positive change to the agave spirits industry!

Shout outs this episode to the Agavos Awards, 818 Tequila, Costco, and Marissa’s dream team, the Boston Red Sox!

Chuck Cowdery was called “the dean of American whiskey journalism” by no less than Robert Simonson in the New York Times. So when I decided more than 250 episodes into this podcast to finally devote one to Mexican whiskey, I naturally invited my celebrated drinking buddy over. It’s (perhaps) the corniest episode of Agave Road Trip!

Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest Chuck Cowdery and additional wisdom from Ismael Gomez of Laika Spirits, Xaime Niembro of Whisky Juan del Campo and Gracias a Dios Mezcal, Txomin Alcorta of Whisky Prieto y Prieta, and Jonathan Barbieri of Whiskey Maiz Nation!

Episode Notes

Check out The Chuck Cowdery Blog!

Thanks to Ismael Gomez of Laika Spirits, Xaime Navarro of Gracias a Dios Mezcal and Juan Del Campo Whiskey, Txomin Alcorta of Whisky Prieto y Prieta, and Jonathan Barbieri of Whiskey Maiz Nation for the quotes this episode.

You can check out NOM 199 here and to see how the rules for whiskey in Mexico compare to the rules for Mezcal, Tequila, and everything else, check out this spreadsheet.

And if the tangent about feni in Goa got you going, check out Hansel Vaz’s Instagram page and Fazenda Cazulo!

Last episode we contrasted the good done through the consumption of heritage agave spirits with the damage caused by same. This episode, we talk about the damage done by the casual consumption of agave spirits. And coffee. And chocolate. And … well, everything. It’s a casual-destruction episode of Agave Road Trip!

Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest Linda Sullivan of seynasecreto with wisdom from Xaime Niembro of Gracias a Dios Mezcal.

Episode Notes

Thanks to Xaime Navarro of Gracias a Dios Mezcal and Juan Del Campo Whiskey for the quote this episode.

Shout outs to Palomo Mezcal, Dark Matter Coffee, Chengdu Bistro, Rogue Ales & Spirits, and Chuck Klosterman and his novel Downtown Owl! (But also … go read Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto. Like, now.)

It’s amazing and moving to see mezcalerxs whose lives have clearly improved as a result of the growing interest in agave spirits. But there’s another side to that story – or, really, multiple other sides to it: some good, some bad, and some … well, the jury is still out on those. We talk about those various stories in this episode of Agave Road Trip!

Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest Linda Sullivan of seynasecreto.

Episode Notes

This episode cover is Courtesy of Slim Pickens! Thanks, Slim!

The episode of “The Hidden Brain” that I was trying to recall is “Relationships 2.0: The Power of Tiny Interactions + Your Questions Answered: Erica Bailey on Authenticity.” So good!

My friends Jen & Adam Murphy have great Instagram feeds, if you’re a gardening nerd or a garden-in-a-cocktail nerd!

Shout out this episode to Jason Cox whose Cinco Sentidos brand of agave spirits is amazing! Equally amazing are his two (count them, two!) brands of Oaxacan rum: Alambique Serrano and Cañada - Aguardiente Oaxaqueño!

Shout out this episode to Mezcal tour guide Randall Stockton and his amazing pandemic program, Feeding Chichicapam!

Shout out this episode to Chuck Klosterman and his novel Downtown Owl! (But also … go read Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto. Like, now.)

When I first started drinking Mezcal, I was told that there were some agaves that couldn’t be farmed — that could only grow wild. And I still here that narrative some two decades later. And it still doesn’t make sense to me. So I did the only logical thing: I asked a farmer.
Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest Tracey Vowell of Three Sisters Garden.

Episode Notes

If you’re anywhere near Chicago or Kankakee, order your farm-fresh produce (and dry goods like locally grown popcorn, beans, and oats) from Three Sisters Garden!

In my consumer-focused tastings, I tell attendees that one of the big things I hope they walk away with is, they can lead a more delicious life and support a more sustainable ecosystem if they start drinking more than just Blue Weber processed in Jalisco and Espadin processed in Oaxaca – that’s literally 99% of what they drink now, and if they instead drink one of those two eight times out of ten instead of, rounded up, ten times out of ten, they’ll be helping to turn the ship away from the monoculture trajectory. And I ask them to ask their bartenders if they have an agave spirit that isn’t one of those two, so the bartender ask their beverage director to get something different. But … what if we could get the gringx bartenders to make that argument themselves? What suggestions can they make to put the agave spirits industry on a healthier trajectory?

Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest Linda Sullivan of seynasecreto.

Episode Notes

If you want to listen to that episode about flights, it’s “Mezcals flights or Mezcal cocktails?”

If you want to listen to that episode about biodiverse cocktail Mezcals, it’s “The Best Mezcals for Mixing, According to Agave Road Trip.”

If you’re a bartender who wants to visit agave spirits producers in Mexico who aren’t connected to brands, check out the Tequila Interchange Project!

Mexico has been purchasing about $3 billion of corn annually from farmers in the USA, the vast majority of that corn having been grown from genetically modified seeds. The Mexican government announced in 2020 that it would, in 2025, ban that GMO corn from the country, which was found to be in violation of the USMCA agreement of 2018. So now, the Mexican government has amended their constitution to identify native corn as an "element of national identity," which will ban GMO corn from being planted in the country – and "[a]ny other use of genetically modified corn must be evaluated ... to be free of threats to the biosecurity, health and biocultural heritage of Mexico and its population." What exactly does this all mean, for farmers in Mexico, for the environment in the Americas, and for the price of tacos? We try to suss it all out in this episode of Agave Road trip!

Agave Road Trip is a critically acclaimed, award-winning podcast that helps gringx bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. This episode is hosted by Lou Bank with special guest Dave Dyrek, retired farmer of Leaning Shed Farm, with quotes from Dr. Hector Ortiz of the Chicago Botanic Gardens and Chef Gustavo Romero of Oro by Nixta.

Episode Notes

When in Chicago, visit the Chicago Botanic Gardens! When in Minneapolis, grab a meal and a stack of tortillas at Oro by Nixta! When traveling back in time, head to the farmers market and visit Leaning Shed!

“US wins ruling in a trade dispute with Mexico over its bid to ban genetically modified corn,” AP News, December 20, 2024

“After trade dispute, Mexico officially bans the planting of GM corn,” Reuters, February 25, 2025

“Don’t mess with Mexico’s maíz: Constitutional amendment to ban GMO corn seeds,” Los Angeles Times, March 13, 2025

If you want to listen to that October 2023 episode with Khrys Maxwell, it’s “The CRT loses their Tequila monopoly.”

You might also want to check out this episode: “The Birth and Death of the CRM,” in which MIA Chava and I discuss the end of the CRM’s monopoly on Mezcal certification.

Check out Riker’s project, MadAgave, on the Web, on Instagram, and on Facebook — and consider making a financial gift. It will help support this important project and also help mitigate the damage done by the recent cyclone that hit the community.

In the episode cover, that’s head distiller Fomesoa, and the other crew members are Samba, Tsimireke, and Freddy.

Marissa is also a board member of Tequila That Cares, a philanthropic organization bringing positive change to the agave spirits industry!

If you missed World Poetry Day, it’s not too late to celebrate. Click here for the archived celebration with Agave Road Trip Poet Laureate Larry Beckett and August Gladstone!

Some numbers I culled from the DISCUS data over the past eight years:

If you just look at volume consumed, 2.7 billion liters in 2024

o   Vodka: 667 million liters (24.4%), trending down a point or two last three years

o   Cocktails (RTDs): 658 million (24.0%), trending up in a big way, double-digit growth every year

o   Whiskey: 647.5 million liters (23.7%), trending down four-ish percent past two years

o   Agave: 289.8 million liters (10.6%), trending up but growth is slowing

o   Rum: 186.1 million liters (6.8%), trending down in an escalating pattern

o   Cordials: 180.7 million liters (6.6%), trending down four-ish percent past two years, like whiskey

o   Brandy: 105.4 million liters (3.9%), big hits past three years

If you look at dollars spent, $36.2 billion in 2024

o   Vodka: $7.2 billion (19.9%), flat since 2021

o   Cocktails (RTDs): $3.3 billion (9.1%), trending up in a big way, double-digit growth every year

o   Whiskey: $11.9 billion (32.9%), trending down two to three percent past two years

o   Agave: $6.7 billion (18.5%), trending up but growth is slowing

o   Rum: $2.2 billion (6.1%), trending down in an escalating pattern

o   Cordials: $2.8 billion (7.7%), trending down but not at same pace as volume

o   Brandy: $2.1 billion (5.8%), big hits past three years

If you look at dollars spent per liter, bearing in mind that inflation between 2016 and 2024 was 30.7%,

o   Vodka: $10.83, up 11% since 2016

o   Cocktails (RTDs): $5.01, down 23% since 2016

o   Whiskey: $18.30, up 15% since 2016

o   Agave: $23.17, up 25% since 2016

o   Rum: $11.99, up 12.6% since 2016

o   Cordials: $15.54, 13.8% since 2016

o   Brandy: $20.24, 10.6% since 2016

You can get all the raw data and draw uyour own conclusions at DISCUS.