Mexicano

About the Producer: Mtro. Raúl García Santana

If you’ve ever visited an active palenque, you know no one mezcaler@ does it all. In fact, mezcal production is a community affair that brings people together. It is humbling to witness how families operate when the palenque is an extension of their household, and how a mage’s knowledge is passed down from one generation to the next. Raúl García Santana is the son of and apprentice to Francisco García León, a founding producer for CUISH.

“My name is Raúl García Santana, originally from San Guillermo Miahuatlán, Oaxaca. I was born in 1988, here in our village. I grew up around palenques where mezcal is [traditionally] produced. I realized that my father produced mezcal at a young age, because he would come home with large containers of mezcal and told us that he had been making it. I saw how men in neighboring palenques layered piñas in earthen ovens, and I liked to collect agave leaves and the “menzontle,” the heart of the agave.

I was about eight years old when my father built his own palenque. I had seen him harvest maguey and how the large agaves left cuts on his arms. He told me that's how I would have to work when I grew up. I remember that the workers crushed agave with a wooden mallet, and my father had to pay them since my brother and I were too young. Me and my brother tried crushing agave with the mallet, but we tired very quickly.

I remember that at 10 years old, my father emigrated to the U.S., and we stayed with my mother. Every two years, he came back from the U.S. and went back to producing mezcal. At that time, there was hardly any sale of mezcal because it was too cheap, so my father stored it. He had a room full of mezcal drums.