I’m a believer that one should create at the intersection of enthusiasm and opportunity. This is to say, just because something is interesting to you, it doesn’t mean that it will capture the imagination of anyone else. By understanding which of your enthusiasms also stand a chance of recruiting others, of building a constituency, you stand a much better chance of commercial success over time.

The constituency I’ve been keenly working on recently actually started as a group of two: myself and my co-founder and friend, Joe Marchese. Mid-summer 2018 we found ourselves at my home in Amsterdam, lamenting the…

My Resignation from the Court of Master Sommeliers, Americas

Today I resigned from the Court of Master Sommeliers Americas (CMSA) because I view it as an organization whose values are at great odds with my own.

The recent global amplification of the long-ignored outcry for racial equality and social justice has elicited what feels to me like a complete lack of empathy from the CMSA; for me this was the last straw. …

Goodbye Sombra.

There are so many reasons today to feel sad, upset, or angry. The world is in a precarious place and so many of the issues at hand are much more important than the one I’m writing about now. But, be that as it may, this is something I need to do.

Thirteen years ago my love of both agave and Mexico compelled me to create Sombra Mezcal and, eventually, Astral Tequila. In this time we have learned and created, we have pioneered a true path of total sustainability for mezcal, and we’ve become a meaningful part of the…

I recently wrote here about the grim realities of mezcal production with regards to degradation of the environment, unsafe conditions for workers, and the inhumane treatment of the animals involved. Amongst the issues discussed, the physical waste from mezcal production is the most noxious of all of them all and the greatest threat to the environment and sustainable mezcal production in Oaxaca and across Mexico.

Consider that for every bottle of mezcal produced, the volume of liquid waste per bottle is equivalent to 10 additional bottles (called vinaza) as well as 12 kilograms of solid waste (known as bagazo.) Historically…

It’s been eleven years since we started on the journey that is Sombra Mezcal, and I feel now is an ideal moment to pen a letter to both the community of producers and to mezcal lovers around the world. Here I’ll share some of the things we’ve learned along the way, and even more importantly, the direction we’re headed with an invitation for others to join us.

Over the past eleven years we have worked in a number of villages with a number of families, in each instance aiming to do better work, to learn more and then to put…