Welcome to Mezcalifornia: Inside California’s Agave Boom
Spiky agave plants grow by vineyards, along scrubby hillsides, near the Pacific coastline, in residential front yards. It’s not the arid fields of Mexico, but a new set of horizons: California agave.
It’s still early days for “Mezcalifornia,” as some have jokingly dubbed the state’s burgeoning agave industry…
June 2024 - Read more:
https://www.wineenthusiast.com/culture/spirits/agave-california/
Connecting the past and the present with Agave
Born in Jalisco, Mexico, Raul Chavez has brought his home nation's culture to Woodland, CA with an agave farm totaling more than 5,000 plants that is being used to make California Agave Spirits by distilleries.
September 2023 - Read more:
https://fox40.com/video/connecting-the-past-the-present-with-agave/9040585/
California has a new take on mezcal and tequila
California’s natural growing conditions — high heat, fertile soil and a Mediterranean climate — make the state suitable for agave as well as many other crops. The California Agave Council now includes farmers from counties as disparate as Lake, San Luis Obispo and Imperial.
April 2023 - Read more:
https://amp.sanluisobispo.com/news/california/article273175820.html
Why the climate crisis may be coming for your margarita next
Agave plants require little watering and can allow farmers to plant crops on land that would have otherwise been fallowed due to lack of water. And while it takes six to eight years for agave plants to mature, scientists say agave plants can also suck planet-warming carbon pollution out of the atmosphere.
March 2023 - Read more:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/22/us/margarita-tequila-agave-climate-crisis/index.html
In the age of Megadrought
Interest in commercial agave production is surging in the West, thanks to the plant’s ability to survive with little or no water and the path into the potentially lucrative world of spirits
October 2022 - Read more:
https://civileats.com/2022/10/25/in-the-age-of-megadrought-farmers-in-the-west-see-promise-in-agave/
UC Davis to Study Agave Sustainability
Agriculture in California faces an uncertain future as drought, wildfires and other climate extremes become more commonplace in the West. But a fledgling industry focused on growing and distilling agave plants, which are used to produce tequila and mezcal in Mexico, could be California’s answer to fallowed fields and a lack of water.
August 2022 - Read more:
https://publicengagement.ucdavis.edu/news/agave-new-drought-tolerant-california-crop
Just Don’t Call it Tequila: The Global Agave Boom Has Arrived
While agave has been cultivated and distilled into tequila, mezcal and other spirits in modern-day Mexico for millennia, the plant is now being grown and distilled in California
July 2022 - Read more:
https://www.winemag.com/2022/07/11/agave-around-the-world/
California Agave Spirit Producers Band Together
Council Formed, Legislation Setting Standards in Sacramento
Abril 2022 - Read more:
https://www.independent.com/2022/04/17/california-agave-spirit-producers-band-together/
Once Upon a Time in Mezcalifornia
For centuries, mezcal—the ancient intoxicant steeped in Mexican tradition—has sprouted almost exclusively from the vast agave farms south of our border. But one Yolo County hobbyist farmer believes that climate change, of all things, has the potential to spur a California version of the storied spirit to take root right here. And despite extraordinary odds, he might just get his day in the sun.
Dec 2020 - Read more:
https://www.sactownmag.com/once-upon-a-time-in-mezcalifornia/