The Tocayo cocktail at Mírate, a Mexican restaurant and bar in Los Angeles, is a conversation-starter in a glass. From the mole base to the garnish—an entire cricket, shiny and golden, perched on an enormous rock—the drink all the time elicits a response. But when there’s one ingredient bartender Max Reis hopes will spark curiosity amongst his company, it’s his proprietary “nogave” syrup, which he calls his “sustainable reply to agave.” The Tocayo includes a beneficiant splash of the stuff, which is made with Demerara sugar and orange blossom honey to imitate the wealthy, spherical sweetness of the true factor.
Reis might have been one of many first to coin the time period “nogave,” however he’s not alone in his critique of agave ethics. Over the past a number of years, the beverage business has opened its eyes to the perils of mass-produced agave spirits, shaken awake by the current tequila scarcity that stirred growers and fraternity presidents alike right into a state of panic. The world’s thirst for tequila is so sturdy as we speak that almost each superstar, from George Clooney to Kendall Jenner, has their very own model, competing for a chunk of the still-growing multibillion-dollar tequila market. However maintaining with demand has confirmed problematic on all sides.
Agaves are massive succulents native to the deserts of the Americas, the place they flourish with the assistance of the long-nosed bat, a key pollinator. In contrast with different industrial money crops like corn, the blue agave crops used for tequila are slow-growing and take at the very least seven years to succeed in full maturity. Underneath stress to satisfy their quotas, agave farmers throughout Mexico have taken to harvesting extra underage agave crops earlier than they flower, stripping bats of an necessary meals supply and wild agaves of one of many solely methods they will reproduce. In a wholesome ecosystem, bats unfold numerous and resilient genes from plant to plant. However agaves which might be cultivated by way of clonal shoots in massive fields, just like the huge swaths grown for tequila, are genetically equivalent, making them extra prone to illness and drought. This leaves growers extra susceptible to large losses, as within the Nineteen Nineties, when agave farms have been devastated by lethal fungal infections.
Equally disturbing to bartenders like Reis is that immature agaves have far much less sugar content material, driving up the necessity for chemical processing and components when it comes time to make the syrup. He notes that agave syrups and nectars have been first launched in the USA as a wholesome various to standard sugar. However as we speak, store-bought agave’s repute as an all-natural “superfood” is generally simply advertising.
With higher visibility into the agave business’s issues, the nogave refrain has gotten louder. Extra bartenders are mixing up their very own alternate options, together with the winner of Netflix’s inaugural Drink Masters, LP O’Brien, whose riff on a traditional Margarita wowed judges in 2022. Garnished with salt foam and a lime Jell-O wedge, the Past Glass Ceilings was crafted with two kinds of tequila and a pineapple nectar nogave syrup.
“The objective in that second was actually to carry consciousness … to a component of a Margarita that not many individuals take into consideration,” says O’Brien.
When she first broke into the business, O’Brien, like so many different burgeoning bartenders, was educated to make Margaritas with the usual specs: tequila, agave syrup and lime juice. It’s a template that was popularized within the ’90s by Julio Bermejo, creator of the Tommy’s Margarita, which substitutes agave sweetener for orange liqueur. However now that she’s extra established, O’Brien steers away from agave syrups. For sustainability causes, positive—but in addition as a result of she simply doesn’t like the flavour.
“When making an distinctive cocktail, the objective for me is to spotlight the bottom spirit,” she says. The extremely processed agave gloop in the marketplace as we speak detracts from “the premium high quality and work” that goes right into a craft tequila, O’Brien provides. Her pineapple nectar nogave syrup, alternatively—made with cooked chunks of the fruit and a mix of different sweeteners—makes use of all-natural components which might be extra complementary.
On the manufacturing facet, there’s a slow-growing effort to curb the exploitation of agave crops in Mexico. The Tequila Interchange Venture created a “Bat Pleasant” certification program, which stipulates that 5 p.c of the agaves utilized in a model’s manufacturing have to be allowed to totally mature and flower. Podcaster Lou Financial institution additionally based SACRED (Saving Agave for Tradition, Recreation, Training, and Improvement), which raises cash to assist rural agave-growing communities in Mexico, based on the nonprofit’s web site.
Financial institution emphasizes that whereas most agave syrups accessible within the States are extremely processed, it will be a mistake to put in writing off the complete class—particularly as a handful of smaller, family-run specialty growers have entered the market, partially via a program piloted by SACRED. Within the Mexican state of Hidalgo, the nonprofit is working to assist households producing pulque, a milky agave spirit that predates tequila, and to develop a syrup comprised of the crops in these small-batch operations. “Each batch is exclusive and scrumptious and actual and true to the heritage of those communities,” Financial institution says. “So suggesting that every one agave syrup is industrial is throwing up one other roadblock to those pulque households, who have already got a tough time sustaining their cultural heritage.”
There’s additionally a rising variety of distillers seeking to produce agave spirits exterior of Mexico, which can alleviate a number of the burden on Mexico’s deserts. (Although, like Scotch in Scotland or bourbon within the U.S., Mexican legislation stipulates that tequila can solely be produced within the state of Jalisco and choose different Mexican municipalities.) Low-water succulents like agave are enticing in locations like California, the place the agriculture business makes use of 40 p.c of the state’s already tight water provide. To that finish, Pedro Wolfe, an editor at Tequila Raiders, mentioned the California Agave Council is likely one of the largest teams investing in home agave manufacturing. And though “they’re nonetheless years away from really distilling spirits,” they’re rising agave now in hopes that they will enter the market throughout the subsequent decade.
We could also be a methods out from a full-fledged nogave revolution, however the sap of change is flowing. Each time a buyer stumbles over “nogave” on the Mírate menu, Reis takes the chance to teach—although he retains the syrup speak “brief and candy.”
“It’s dangerous for the company and dangerous for the surroundings,” he summarizes. “So we created our personal.”