It is mezcal distilled with cacao, the bean that chocolate is made from. Not a chocolate liqueur, and no added sugar.
The short answer
Cacao is what chocolate starts out as, long before sugar, milk or butter turn it into a bar. Here it goes through the still rather than into the bottle afterwards, so what comes out is a mezcal, not a liqueur: nothing sweetened, nothing colored, no syrup at any stage.
The style belongs to a Oaxacan tradition called pechuga, where a third distillation is run with something extra, historically to mark a wedding or a saint's day. Cacao is one of its rarer expressions.
So is it sweet?
Not the way a liqueur is sweet.
Chocolate liqueurs like crème de cacao are built on added sugar and bottled weak. This is a mezcal at full proof, 49% ABV, with no sugar added at any stage. The sweetness you do taste is the agave's own, and the cacao arrives on the finish as a delicate hint of dark chocolate. Nothing syrupy, and nothing bitter.
How ours is made
In Santa Catarina Minas, Oaxaca, by maestra mezcalera Rosario Ángeles, using the ancestral method.
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Roast, mill, ferment
Espadín agave, roasted in an underground pit, then milled by hand with a wooden mallet rather than a stone tahona or a machine. Fermented in open air on natural yeast.
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Distill twice in clay
Two passes through a wood-fired clay pot still, the olla de barro. Clay rather than copper is what makes this ancestral.
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Distill a third time, with cacao
Oaxacan cacao is introduced for a third and final distillation, which is what makes this a destilado con cacao rather than a flavored mezcal.
Destilado, abocado, or liqueur?
Mexican law separates these three, and the wording on a label tells you which one you are holding.
| Destilado con | Abocado con | Liqueur | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flavor added | In the still | After, by steeping | After, as syrup |
| Sugar added | None | Sometimes | Always |
| Strength | 45 to 50% ABV | Varies | 15 to 25% ABV |
Our label reads espadín, destilado con cacao. In the United States the same bottle says "Mezcal Ancestral with Natural Flavors," which is what American labeling rules require. Different wording, same liquid, no sugar in either country.
What it tastes like
Earthy aromas of minerality and clay, followed by a pleasant plant sweetness. Giving way to notes of white pepper, finished with a delicate hint of cacao, which reads on the palate as dark chocolate.
Gold
San Francisco World
Spirits Competition 2025
How to drink it
Neat, at room temperature, in a copita or a small clay cup. No ice, which mutes the aromatics. It also holds its own in a stirred cocktail, particularly alongside coffee, orange or chilli.