Karina Abad is the master distiller at the Los Danzantes palenque in Santiago de Matatlan, Oaxaca. Los Danzantes, known as Los Nahuales in the US, was founded in 1995. Along with its sister brand, Alipus, Danzantes has been ahead of the curve when it comes to investing in the future of mezcal.
Much of their innovation comes down to Karina, who is deeply passionate about studying each step of the process. Originally from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, she is now based in Matatlan to oversee the details of production and develop her research.
The smart mechanics of making a more sustainable mezcal
Recently, my partner Brooks and I went to visit Karina at the Los Danzantes palenque. Karina guided us through the production, spotlighting the unusual layout. The arrangement is very linear, with each step of the process set lower than the last, so gravity does a lot to help with efficiency.
The pit oven sits at the furthest point from the visitor entrance. Once cooked, the agave is crushed in the tahona, as per a classic artisanal palenque. The oven at Los Danzantes holds a maximum of 10 tons. Karina says normally they put nine tons in each lot.
The area that really stands out is the fermentation. The whole centre of the palenque is dug down and rock lined. Within this space are approx 25 smallish tinas on wheels. Karina explains that the size and wheels are to make it easier to fill and empty them. As well as being easier to access, the recessed, open tinas, are also insulated by the rock.
Smaller open tubs facilitate greater consistency throughout the batch of tepache. Throughout the fermentation cycles, Karina and her team assess each tina’s contents in their on-site lab. Danzantes mezcals are twice distilled in copper. One run is done using stills where the first section is set in concrete overlaid with tile. The copper coil cools inside a barrel. The second distillation is with a copper Portuguese still, which was installed in 2010. This is different from the alembic still you typically see in Oaxaca. The montera is rounder and the arm is more curved, which allows only the finer, purer molecules to pass through.
Karina says this unusual still “gives the product a more elegant and refined touch, due to the neck of the still being in the shape of a swan. The difference lies in the angle of the neck, and when the compounds rise, not all of them manage to pass through to the coil.”
Both rounds of distillation are heated by gas. Karina says this is more of a sustainable choice–they are consuming less wood. The concrete casing keeps the stills a more consistent temperature, thus minimizing gas usage.
Why rest mezcal in glass?
Danzantes has a climate-controlled barrel ageing room for reposados and añejos, as well as a cellar for mezcal ageing in glass. Karina explains that ageing in glass is important, as molecules in the liquid are initially chaotic. Over time they become more aligned. This presents as smoother and rounder in the final flavour and texture of the mezcal.
The history of mezcal certification
Karina studied biological chemistry at the Benito Juárez Autonomous University of Oaxaca (UABJO). “The cool thing about chemistry is that it is a science that extends to many branches and is really more present in our lives every day than one thinks,” she says.
While Karina was still in school at UABJO, a professor invited her to participate in a course training the first field verifiers in the mezcal certification processes. She was schooled in technical aspects of the process and metrology. In 2003, she became the first field verifier for the Mexican Mezcal Quality Regulatory Council (COMERCAM–which was at one point called the CRM).
“They were like pharmacists, they did product development and they got into some kind of tests to develop products at the school.”
She explains she likes working in the laboratory as it allows her to be precise in her research. However, she prefers not to be in such a confined space. “When they told me we would be doing field work, well, my eyes lit up. I really like field work, because I like experimentation.”
The team began visiting mezcal-producing regions, to see how the new regulations might be applied. They started their research in San Juan del Rio, where they spent around six months. Karina lived there for three months, working with five palenques. She explains that this was because “she was the only one legally certified to be a verifier.”
While Karina was in San Juan, she spent her time meticulously detailing the process: “How they did it, the decisions they made, and how it could be done, including the part which the inspector (or the verifier) was going to carry out.” Through her notes, she aimed to see how certain processes corresponded to the regulations.
“We were doing the whole journey from the day they did the tapada until the last day they distilled,” she says. They then analysed the data to know the sugar content of the different types of agave after cooking and during the evolution of fermentation. “We helped them document all that, and we also taught them how to keep records of all the details,” she explains.
Karina explains some challenges for the council included how to assess different quantities, because at that time there were no large tanks–the storage capacity was 50 liters. The process was also very slow. “Little by little it adapted,” she says. After six months, the families in San Juan received their first certificates
In addition to the challenges the council worked to overcome, Karina faced a personal challenge: During her early visits to San Juan, producers didn’t want to receive her in their palenques. “They said that women were prohibited from the process, that it was not good for us to be there,” she says. However, Karina persevered. “I told them: Well this is my job, and I have to be here.”
Over time the community began to accept her. “When the older men speak to me with a lot of respect, it makes me feel even more committed and I know that there’s an understanding with them,” she says.
Karina says that through her work with the council, a door was opened to this mezcal world. It was important because she got to know places and producers. “I oversaw the whole issue of what was going to happen … with the issue of certification.”
She only worked as a COMERCAM regulator for a year, and then she dedicated herself to training producers who wanted to certify their mezcal. She helped them create production records and understand and comply with the standards, including the measurement of toxic compounds required for mezcal certification.
“This way I was able to get to know several mezcal-making communities and understand how to support production to make improvements in the processes to raise its quality–without ceasing to be an artisanal process.”
Karina explains, “Many producers did not read, or write, much less would they know what total reducing sugars are. There were many who did not know what methanol is, higher alcohols, anything like that.” She saw an opportunity to help them learn how to operate without losing the artisanal or traditional aspects of the process.
Before certification, mezcal producers were not making records of their production, or making notes of how things worked. Karina explains that the data she collects is for future producers. “It is a memory that for you, for me, is an important heritage. You can continue generating more knowledge from there and know how to continue, continue preserving this subject.”
Learning how to make mezcal
Spending time living in San Juan helped Karina better understand the nuances of making mezcal, and dynamics in the community. Despite initial skepticism about having a woman working in the palenques, she remembers that “ they were excited, they decided to enroll because they were clear that they were the best mezcal producers in Oaxaca, that was something important.”
She says the mezcaleros perceived that if you are certified you will have more sales and be able to sell your product in other places. “And that was why they wanted to be certified, they wanted the name of San Juan del Río to go beyond their town–for everyone to know it. More than anything else, that was their reason.”
Karina says that in the immediate aftermath of those first visits, people were happy. However, producers did struggle with some of the extra elements of certification such as understanding the Norma. And the commercial success was not immediate. She says it took until around 2010 for everyone to understand the steps involved. “From 2010 began a period of growth in mezcal production.”
When she left, the CRM had around fifteen producers involved. At that point, mezcal Danzantes was poised to be certified. Karina remembers,”I left when they were doing the paperwork, but I never thought that one day I would work with them.”
In 2009, she was out visiting producers and met Danzantes co-founder Héctor Vázquez. “I already knew him by sight, but he asked me what I did. I explained to him what I was doing with the producers.” After this meeting Hector invited Karina to work with the Danzantes/ Alipus project, originally as someone who would help with quality control.
Once at Danzantes, she had the opportunity to continue researching processes. She has a small laboratory at the distillery where they can do tests. There is also a mini still so she can “also distill in a small way, do some experiments.”
A lot of the espadín that Los Danzantes make comes from San Juan del Río but, as Karina explains, it may come from other sources such as Matatlan, Miahuatlán, Matatlán and Santa Cruz Papalutla. If a batch is from Papalutla, the whole lot will be from Papalutla. Like many great artisanal mezcal brands, the back of each bottle has in-depth information about the batch size and date. They also provide information on where the plant comes from, down to the name of the property.
With Los Danzantes, Karina is researching how different agaves respond to different regions and nuances of process. “I have the opportunity to work with other agaves, with other magueys that are not espadín,” she says. She is focussed on expanding her knowledge of aromas and compounds, discovering more information that can be documented.
Karina explains that one agave works very differently than other varieties. An espadín fermentation is very different from tobalá, or one from cuishe, or coyote. She says you have to evaluate everything from the sugars, the maturity of the plants, how they evolve, the field, the type of fibers. All the fibers are different when seen in a microscope. Some are harder, others become like a paste. Tobalá, for example, is very soft, but it doesn’t have many sugars. So formulating the quantity of water to agave for fermenting tobalá is not the same as for an espadín, which has much more sugar.
Redefining DOs and mezcal certification
Karina thinks that to better identify mezcals, the certification should be more complex. This could be achieved with smaller and more specific denominations of origin for agave spirits. “That protection would be according to the places. Each place has specific situations that will impact the products. The ideal would be that we could distinguish a product by its origin, where it comes from.”
Currently mezcal has a very broad denomination of origin. She explains that if you were certifying a product as purely from Miahuatlán or from the mountains, “then you would know that you are going to find these characteristics and these types of maguey. It also has to do with the soil, the water and the particular characteristics that the plant has.”
Besides the terroir of particular plants, Karina is keen to emphasise that the process and context of the palenque is of utmost importance.
“All the time everyone talks about the land, about the characteristics of a mezcal based on the place where the plant comes from, but the production process is also important and I think that it should not be left behind because the magic is done by those yeasts–the microorganisms do it. The land, the water and all these factors are important, but the production process should not be left as something secondary.”
Karina was happy to find that Danzantes/Alipus also had a connection with San Juan through a producer called Joel, the son of Don Joel Antonio de San Juan, who were among the first producers to be certified. “It was easy to establish a relationship again there. We already knew each other, he already knew more or less what I was going to do, and I started to work with him on production, connectors, data.”
Work with Alipus/Danzantes took her back to visit the first producers she met in San Juan. Reminiscing about her journey through mezcal, she says: “It’s like destiny took me there. I can also see the growth they have had, not only in the productive part, but the personal growth of the producers.” Now the children of those producers are mezcaleros and have their own families.
“I see those who were grandchildren already in the process and they remember me. They greet me and say ‘You taught us this and that’ and so on. That makes me feel very good and I always try to reflect on those things.”
Looking forward, Karina says she is keen to teach. She’s considering developing a workshop or school through which to share the knowledge she has acquired over the years. With Danzantes she hopes to continue innovating and developing new batches.
**Updated on 3/12/2025 to correct the misspelling of Karina Abad’s last name – it is Abad, not Abed.
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