The clay
Distilled in clay
An olla de barro, a clay pot fired from Oaxacan earth, where the still is made of the same ground the agave grew in.
An olla de barro, in the style of Santa Catarina Minas.
The method
Named for how, not where
We mean “in the style of Santa Catarina Minas” precisely. It names a way of making: the earthen still, the small batch, the patience. The village line stays blank until a real family fills it in.
A clay still holds less and asks more of the person running it. What comes off it is rounder and softer than what steel gives. That trade is the whole argument.
The whole system
One material, all the way down
The limewashed wall you are reading this on is the wall of a palenque. The near-black ink is San Bartolo clay. The faint tooth on every surface is paper standing in for fired earth.
Nothing here is decoration with a Mexican accent bolted on. The liquid itself will be distilled this way, by a family we have not signed yet. The clay is the product.