Alipus

Since 2004 Craft Distillers® has worked with Grupo Los Danzantes to develop the US market for artisanal mezcals. Both Craft Distillers and Grupo Los Danzantes are deeply committed to keeping age-old artisanal methods alive by bringing the Alipús mezcals to market, thus providing a livelihood for a way of working, and a way of life, that are danger of disappearing – forever – amid the changes created by the powerful, forced, and rapid transition to the modern world.

This project finds and commissions an incredible variety of mezcals all across Mexico. Lovingly selected premium artisanal mezcals hand-distilled in family distilleries in rural pueblos in the state of Oaxaca, in southwest Mexico. These family distilleries are very old-fashioned operations. Some still lack stone mills, and crush the roasted agaves by hand, using long-handled wooden mallets, in canoas, hollowed out logs; others distill in potstills made from clay.

The process is slow and labor-intensive. The process is tied into the agave itself, tied into the pueblo where the mezcal is distilled, tied into local and regional methods handed down for generations. Craft Distillers imports a limited selection to the United States which share common threads of quality at a moderate price with the many labels which never make it out of Mexico.

Its registered NOM is 014X. More information about the brand can be found on its website.