Nectar Corridor

Episode 8

Mezcal Rituals with Asis Cortés and Mar de Cortés

Niki Nakazawa VO:

Hello and welcome back to The Nectar Corridor, a podcast where we explore the incredible world of mezcal, the most emblematic and diverse spirit of Mexico. I’m your host, Niki Nakazawa.

Today, we’re going on a spiritual journey through the patron saints of the cultura del mezcal. I visited “el Altar,” a place imbued with tremendous love and respect for mezcal, and spoke to Asis and Mar Cortés, the owners of this truly magical space. 

Mar gave me a very warm welcome, and begins this episode by introducing us to Espíritus Máxicos. 

This podcast was originally recorded in Spanish. Our conversation with Mar is interpreted by Paula Cooke. And Asis is interpreted by himself in English.

Mar Cortés:

Welcome to Espíritus Máxicos. This is a space where we gather with makers, artists and friends. Although it is small, we collect and display works of art on these walls. Each object is hand-crafted with so much love and affection, and we want to make this space open and welcoming to all.

In Espíritus Máxicos, everything can be touched, seen and felt. And if you want to know more about a specific object, it would be my great pleasure to share their stories. But in order to do that, we need to sit down with a good mezcal. And to tell the stories of mezcal and the spirits of Mexico, we have this other space we call “the Altar.” Here, we have rituals, stories, histories and a little bit of magic – which all comes together for us to drink mezcal.

Niki Nakazawa VO:

Asis Cortés comes from more than four generations of mezcaleros in Santiago Matatlán, a town in the Eastern part of the Central Valleys of Oaxaca state. He remembers growing up in a household that only spoke Zapotec, with Spanish being spoken by only the younger generations.

Asis Cortés:

It’s like bringing a small piece of home with us. We are from Matatlán, and in all of the homes there you will find a space dedicated to the ritual of thanking, the ritual of receiving family, friends, and ancestors. And this space back home is called “Altar,” which has a Catholic influence, but it also has a lot of connection with our roots and our culture. We continue to preserve much of our Zapotec culture, from the language to the traditions to the rituals. And the Altar is more than just a physical space for us – it is a space where we can travel between dimensions, and to bridge these various dimensions, we always use mezcal.

As a child, I remember seeing my family gathered at the Altar with a glass of mezcal in their hands. It was a sacred and unique moment, and even though I couldn’t fully understand it, I could feel the energy, and little by little, I started feeling the connection. It was a way to know and understand that our mezcal wasn’t just an alcoholic beverage – it was something that was passed down from generation to generation. It carried a deeper meaning. It is this sacred drink that really connects us with one another and with our Mother Earth, with the gods and the spirits. At the Altar, we recognize that we are passing through this Earth and that every moment must be celebrated. So we invite you to this space, to sit and to share with us.

Niki Nakazawa:

Muchas gracias.

Mar Cortés:

“Dixeebe.”

Niki Nakazawa VO:

As Asis explained it, making mezcal means bringing together your knowledge, your traditions, and what you have inherited from your ancestors. It also means showing respect for the land, for the plants and for the people who make it. Mezcal represents all of the beauty of the maguey, and to drink it means sharing something from your heart. To toast, we say, “Dixeebe,” a Zapotec word that goes beyond a simple toast. 

Asis Cortés:

Dixeebe, like many Zapotec words, does not have a literal translation. I was fortunate to grow up with a very Zapotec family. My great-grandparents did not speak Spanish, my grandparents spoke very little Spanish, and my parents speak Zapotec much more often than Spanish. And dixeebe is more than just a word, it is an expression of deep gratitude and acknowledgment. 

It’s the feeling of walking in a field after having planted corn, beans, and maguey, and thanking Mother Earth for allowing me to work and take care of the food that will grow. And when it is time to harvest, the feeling of joy knowing that you will continue to harvest for many years to come. To thank Mother Earth, we say dixeebe. And we don’t toast with atole or coffee, we always do it with mezcal.

Mar Cortés:

It is difficult to summarize the word, but it is an expression of respect and love. We appreciate everything we have, we appreciate our past, our present and our future. We thank the sun and the rain for what we grow, and we are grateful that we will pass down our knowledge and tradition to future generations.

I think it’s easy to forget about all the precious moments we experience daily. When we walk in the fields, we don’t always think about what we are stepping on, or what we are eating or drinking. But it’s the feeling of recognizing that.

Niki Nakazawa VO:

Mar and Asis have created a space that acknowledges these beautiful moments and that connects visitors to each other and to their surroundings on deeper levels. They attribute much of their appreciation of mezcal to their families.

Asis Cortés:

It’s hard to say when my family began making mezcal because we do not have historical documents that go back very far, but my father and grandfather were both in the business. There are some ruins where mezcal was produced. One belonged to my father’s family and the other to my mother’s family.

I remember playing with my cousins when I was a child. We would run around the fields and I remember seeing the fermentation tanks and the water and the distillations. My father’s family had a lot of people working with mezcal. My great-great-great-grandfather Don Miguel Cortés produced mezcal about 180 years ago, and his son Don Gregorio Cortés also produced in what is now known as the center of Santiago Matatlán
My grandfather and his brother also had a palenque, which is where my father grew up. When my father was young, he asked to help work on the palenque and my grandfather said to him, “No, if you want to go to school, I will help you. I will support you.” 

Because back then, continuing school meant finishing primary school and moving on to secondary school. My grandfather said to him, “If you stop studying, there will be no opportunities for you other than this work.”

So my father finished primary school at the age of 12 and he moved to the city to start secondary school. Within one week, he decided this was not for him and he came home. From that day on, he began working in mezcal production. Together with my grandfather, he was able to continue with this family tradition.

Niki Nakazawa VO:

Asis was born in a difficult time, not just for his family but for mezcal. At first there was a lot of demand for the drink, and production was on par. But a few years later, with the devaluation of the peso in 1994 and mounting economic pressures, things took a turn for the worse for mezcaleros in Matatán.

Asis Cortés:

I grew up in the late 1980s, and I remember hearing about how mezcal sales were declining, but production was still going strong. And that was because the producer was focused on his crops and his field – if maguey is ready for harvest, then it goes into production. The mezcalero was not involved in the commercial side back then.

So as time went on, more mezcal bottles were lining the shelves but no one was buying them. This led to a steep decline in prices, and at a certain point, many mezcalero families closed their palenques and emigrated because they no longer had their livelihood. There would be no way to sell all of their surplus at a fair price. So I grew up in this constant struggle between continued production for low and unfair pay, and just closing shop altogether. In 2002, my father finally decided to stop production.

Asis Cortés:

And my mother also had a difficult childhood. My grandfather, may he rest in peace, passed away when my mother was 13 years old. She, along with her mother, her sister, and younger brothers now had to be in charge of their palenque. It was really challenging to maintain production, but they fought hard. And at that point in time, everyone in town was struggling because at that point mezcal was already losing its value.

And this brings me to our continued fight for the recognition of mezcal to this day. Because mezcal is, and has always been, a complex and worthy drink to make. And we want to demonstrate its value.

Niki Nakazawa VO:

Asis tells me that now more than ever, there are growing challenges for the future of mezcal. As we heard from Félix in Episode 6, the adulteration of mezcal created a vicious cycle that gave the drink a very bad reputation. There has been a large effort to regain mezcal’s credibility, but there is also the added pressure to continue passing down the generations-long tradition and cultura del mezcal.

Asis Cortés:

I started working to clean up mezcal’s reputation about 13 years ago. I remember that back then, out of 10 places I would visit, nine of them would tell me that they had no interest in even tasting a mezcal. That’s how bad it was.

So it took a lot of work and patience at first because you had to find the right way to open up the conversation, to share and teach, and have an exchange. And slowly we started to meet others that were doing the same work and that was really beautiful. I’d say this was around 2009 or 2010 where we started seeing more people with the same desire and energy, but with different perspectives, which really helped the cause.

My father says he never lost hope, but I remember that when I was around 15 years old, he said to me, “Make sure you go to school and study. This is very hard work and people don’t appreciate it.” And to hear those words from someone who has been doing this all his life…it was just so tough. But I really think that gave me strength to push even harder.

Niki Nakazawa VO:

The mezcal boom came soon after this undertaking to revitalize the drink. It reached spaces that were already knowledgeable about wine, whiskey, beer, gastronomy, etc. And it brought with it depth and diversity. As Asis explained, this was mezcal emerging from a period of darkness.

I’d like to say that the story ends here, at a high point for mezcal, but as you listeners well know by now, mezcal faces new challenges…

Asis Cortés:
Before we could even realize it, there were huge companies entering the market. They saw mezcal as nothing more than a business opportunity and began to commercialize the drink based on the business model that already existed for other beverages.

This path of commercialization was a discredit to all of the cultural value and tradition that mezcal represented. We already had so much that we needed to rescue and revitalize, and this emergence from big businesses made the effort that much harder.

But that is why Mar and I have a space like this. Everything we do is focused on giving more value to the mezcal culture, from the land, to the ecosystem, to the people that make this beautiful drink. The day I see mezcal as nothing more than a product or an alcoholic drink, will be the day that I have lost my roots, my culture and my respect for my family and my land. And I hope that never happens, but it’s up to us to make sure it doesn’t happen.

Niki Nakazawa VO:

Like Asis, Mar has her own family history that connects her to la cultura del mezcal and rituals.

Mar Cortés:

My family and my ancestors are all from Matatlán. I was born in Mexico City, and my story is very peculiar. My mother left Matatlán because her children were dying. She said that there had been a witch who killed children at that time. 

And it’s interesting because the day I met Asis’ grandmother, she confirmed this. She asked me why my parents left Matatlán and I said that all my older siblings had died at a very young age. She said to me, “Yes, there was a witch at that time. It happened to me, too.”

So my parents left. They were peasants. My mother doesn’t know how to read or write and my father had a third-grade education. They moved to Mexico City in hopes that they would make a better life for themselves, and it worked. I am the youngest of six siblings. Before us, seven siblings had died in Oaxaca. And my story with mezcal begins with my parents.

And just as we heard Asis talk about mezcal rituals with his family, I had a similar situation. My parents are very Catholic, and at the altar, they always had a mezcal offering. And my father would say some words in Zapotec, he would make the sign of the cross on me, he would lower his hands, and he would bless us. 

And even if it was 8 o’clock in the morning, my dad would have this small glass of mezcal with his breakfast. For him, it was like a blessing, and I didn’t really understand it when I was young. But I slowly became aware of it – every celebration, every New Year, every Christmas, there would be a mezcal ritual

I grew up thinking that mezcal was only made in Matatlán. My parents weren’t mezcaleros, but my father was a woodcutter. He would bring wood to the palenques and he would often help them out. I remember that the first time I got drunk was with my younger brother. We got into the mezcal in the closet and it tasted so good. And then my mom found us and took care of us that night. She wasn’t upset, but she told us that we didn’t have to get drunk with mezcal, and that we needed to respect the drink.

Niki Nakazawa VO:

Mar was able to stay connected with her culture and her ancestors because she often traveled between Mexico City and Matatlán.

Mar Cortés:

My dad would travel to and from Matatlán, bringing back mezcal, chorizo and cecina which is similar to prosciutto. One of his cousins is a butcher, so he would bring these meats to Mexico City to sell. And every time he would head out, all six of us would beg to go with him. Our entire family is in Matatlán and we just loved visiting.

By the age of 13, I started traveling by myself to Matatlán. I would take a bus for who knows how many hours to Oaxaca, and from Oaxaca to Matatlán. And it was during one of those trips to visit my sister that I met Onassis Cortés. It was around nine years ago and we instantly clicked. It was like we had the same vibrations, the same frequencies. We got together, we got married, and we have been inseparable ever since.

Niki Nakazawa VO:

Mar and Asis just look radiant together. They have cultivated a space for blessings, for offerings and for giving thanks. I was curious about what other uses they have for mezcal.

Asis Cortés:

When you think about traditional rituals, you imagine this big scene where you get together and make a big gesture. But you don’t often think about the day-to-day, and there are countless opportunities to manifest all the beliefs and traditions we have on a daily basis.

The story of Mar’s life is a reflection of that. Although she moved away from the land of her ancestors in Matatlán, she did not lose those roots. Her family continued to believe and to preserve those traditions.

Mezcal is a part of our lives from beginning to end – from birth, when a small amount is placed on the baby’s gums to welcome them, to the day we die, when our rememberance is celebrated by drinking mezcal and sharing stories. 

Even during sickness, we will blow mezcal for well wishes, and we combine it with herbs to cleanse the body of evil spirits.

Asis Cortés:

Last year during the pandemic, we visited my parents’ house and as soon as we opened the door, we got this really strong, delicious smell. And my mom came over to us and started spraying us with something saying she was sanitizing us from the virus and the outside. And I could smell something and it was like tepextate aroma, and I said what is this?” And she said, “this is the tepextate puntas’ And I said, “Ok, spray more on us!”

Mar Cortés:

Mezcal really is everything for us. And this space, as small as it is, is a little piece of my mom, my grandmother, Asis’ family, our loved ones. And mezcal is the way we toast and give thanks to everything and everyone. We don’t use wine or cider; it’s always mezcal. It’s like our little saint or our amulet.

Asis Cortés:

It is everything. And I think that at the end of the day, it’s the most beautiful legacy we can leave to the next generation. What we have received from our ancestors is beautiful and unique, and if in our lifetime, we see it being lost once again, then we will do everything we can to rescue it, so that not one day goes by without recognizing the significance of mezcal.

Mar Cortés:

There is a phrase that my father-in-law Don Valentín Cortés uses that says, “Mezcal is like a human being. Each mezcal has a bit of the character of the maestro mezcalero and you must give him the respect he deserves.”

Niki Nakazawa VO:

At el Altar, stories and emotions of lives dedicated to mezcal emerge. The ritual is sharing with community.

Mar Cortés:

We always say that the Altar is not a secret place, it is a private place where you, yourself, make a connection with mezcal. Maybe it’s a connection with the words of the cicerone, the person who is guiding you, or maybe it’s a connection with yourself.

We had a visitor once who came to us crying and said, “I am the last generation of shoemakers and I am so fascinated with my history but I can no longer leave a legacy. I can no longer rescue it.” 

In just telling that story, he was connecting with a piece of himself. It was a very touching experience, to see the admiration, the affection, the sensitivity and the understanding. We said to him, “It’s never too late. You will always have this story with you.”

We also once had a silversmith come to Espíritus Máxicos who told us that none of the younger generations wanted to learn the trade. He said, “I’ve even offered to pay the kids to go and learn, but they don’t want to.” 

And he cried because he felt helpless and alone. He wanted to teach them how to work with their hands. And for a moment, in this space, he was able to recount his story and find something that he thought he had lost.

Niki Nakazawa VO:

For Mar and Asís, the mezcales of Matatlán are not easy to define. When they taste a mezcal, they think as much about the production and the work involved as they do about the aromas and flavors. You have to take the time to understand the complexity and identity of each mezcal. It is a continuous learning process that is very difficult to explain in words, but it is possible to understand with the mind and soul.

Mar Cortés:

When you serve mezcal, it’s like serving a spirit, a soul without a body. And when you take a sip, it becomes a part of your body. From this perspective, you are able to value what you consume.

We like to share a mezcal moment with people in this space, to make it an intimate gathering place where we can speak and listen.

Asis Cortés:

We’d like to finish this conversation with a request – that the next time we have a mezcal in our hands, we will stop thinking and we will open our hearts to start feeling. Mezcal is more than just the aromas or the flavors, it is about feeling. 

And when you open your heart, you let your body take over, as Mar would say.

ALL:

Gracias. “Dixeebe!”

Niki Nakazawa VO:

Many thanks to Mar and Asis for sharing their space, their rituals and their stories with me, and to our voice actor, Paula.

¡Saludos desde las tierras del mezcal y hasta la próxima! 

The Nectar Corridor is part of Whetstone Radio Collective.

Thank you to The Nectar Corridor team, producer Jackie Noack, associate producer Rosina Castillo, editors Andres Jimenez and Max Kotelchuck, and researcher Olivia Mayeda.

English translations by Jackie Noack, with editorial support from Carlynn Crosby and Emily Vizzo. Cover art by Alex Bowman. Thank you to Las Norteñitas de Oro for the use of our theme song, “Jinetes en el cielo.
I’d also like to thank Whetstone founder Stephen Satterfield, Whetstone Radio Collective Head of Podcasts Celine Glasier, sound engineer Max Kotelchuck, associate producer Quentin Lebeau, production assistant Amalissa Uytingco and sound intern Simon Lavender.

You can learn more about this podcast at whetstone radio.com, Instagram and Twitter at @whetstoneradio and subscribe to our YouTube channel Whetstone Radio Collective for more video podcast content. You can learn more about all things happening at Whetstone Media at whetstonemedia.com

The Nectar Corridor is originally produced and recorded in Spanish. If you would like to listen to the original interview, you can search for El corredor del néctar wherever you get your podcasts.