Don Antonio Sonido began distilling around 1974, at the age of 26, when he began learning from a friend who had experience as a laborer producing mezcal in the shadow of the Guerrero Sierra. They built a fabrica of their own, hidden remotely in a mountain ravine to escape persecution, and together distilled for days on end and by lamplight deep into the night.
Today, Don Antonio cultivates Papalote and Espadín with his siblings on 3 hectares of land where they also raise crops, sheep, and chicken; he distills with his son Lorenzo, 39.
To make this plush and fruit-driven mezcal, Don Antonio used both wild and his own cultivated Agave cupreata, harvested velilla, which indicates a mature agave which is cut just before the reproductive stalk (quiote) can fully emerge. The agave is then castrated (capón) to redirect the sugars in the plant to the heart (piña) for a further 2 years before finally being taken to the fabrica for cooking, milling, fermenting, and distilling.
