The third agave
A cata of cocuy at Viva Madrid — Venezuela's wild agave spirit, and why most of the room didn't know it was agave at all.
- The plant
- Agave cocuy — wild, Venezuela only
- To harvest
- 8–10 years, never cloned or farmed
- The still
- Pot still, blended by terroir
- The flight
- Ton 618 · 43% — La Joya · 50%
Some of the best cocktail education doesn't happen behind a bar. It happens at a table, with a row of tasting glasses and someone who has spent their life around a plant talking with their hands. This one happened at Viva Madrid, in a cata led by Dr. Noraida of Ton618, a Venezuelan cocuy house — a flight of cocuy, an agave distillate that half the room didn't know was agave at all. This is Entre Compas, the agave chapter of The Making of the Spirits: conversations between friends of the plant, written down before they evaporate.
The elegance of tequila and the complexity of mezcal.
Tequila and mezcal aren't the whole agave map. Cocuy is the third name — wild plant, wild yeast, a patient pot still — and tasting it teaches the same truth again: nothing is added but time, and the sweetness was in the plant all along.
