Bagazo (or Bagaso)

Pulling the bagazo after a distillation run.

Bagazo (bagasso, bagaso, bagasse) is the cooked and pulped agave fibers that remain after making mezcal. The term has a roundabout origin. It probably started in Spanish as bagazo, which migrated to the French bagasse and then came back into Spanish as bagaso relatively recently. At least that’s the best we’ve been able to do to pinpoint the terms’ linguistic meandering.

The bagasso as it ferments. — The bagazo as it ferments.

The actual meaning of the word has wandered as well. Bagazo used to describe the remainder of sugar cane processing, all the husks and and pulp that you get after you get the juice out of the cane. This is pure speculation, but I wonder whether the term traveled into the Caribbean with the Spanish, jumped to the French sugarcane plantations there, then back into Spanish through sugarcane plantations on mainland Mexico starting in Veracruz, and then finally up to the plantations in Oaxaca and the western Mexican states where mezcal production left much of the same fibrous mass after processing.

It's used to seal and insulate. — It’s used to seal and insulate.

In the mezcal world bagazo starts life as the piña or heart of the agave. That is harvested and roasted underground, then crushed into a pulp which is when the term bagazo is first used. The bagazo is then fermented, distilled, and tossed away. But it doesn’t simply end life.

Removing the bagasso from a still. — Removing the bagaso from a still.

Mexican farmers are notoriously productive and sustainable as a way of life simply because they have to be. They have the most ingenious repairs to tools and everything else on the farm, this spirit extends to the bagaso. At the very least it’s used as compost and field fertilizer. But if you look around a mezcal distillery you’ll see bagaso everywhere as a sealant. When many distilleries roast agave they’ll cover the agave piñas with an insulating layer of bagaso. When they distill they’ll frequently use bagaso to help seal and insulate the still. Some people are even working on dehydrating the bagaso and using it to fire their stills. That’s about as full circle as it gets.