Campanilla del Palmar Verde – M. Maria de la Luz

About this destilado de agave

Campanilla del Palmar Verde from M. Maria de la Luz is produced with Agave salmiana subspecies Crassispina that takes 18-25 years to reach maturity. During fermentation, 40 liters of pulque are added to jumpstart the sugar-yeast interaction. The distillation is done in extremely small batches using a campanilla style still.

Campanilla del Palmar

Campanilla del Palmar is produced by the highly acclaimed Maestra Maria de La Luz Martinez and her two sons Jaime and Manuel Navarro in the community of Palmar Segundo in the state of San Luis Potosi, in Central Mexico. The family has been producing mezcal or destilados de agave using rare and very labor intensive clay pot stills for 8 generations.

The Navarro’s work with 4 different subspecies of Agave salmiana that are locally known as Verde, Cuerno, Chino, and Blanco. For all of their destilados, they only ferment the agave juice, the fibers from the heart of the agave, and pulque, which helps to jump-start the fermentation process.

Unlike the Filipino stills, which have an exit spout in the top chamber of the still, their stills are very different in that the top clay pot chamber (caparote) has a smaller 15-liter clay pot hanging inside it that is used for collecting the condensed spirits. The suspended catchment vessel resembles a little bell, or campanilla, which has historically been referred to as being a Mongolian type of still.

Also unique to this clay pot distillation method, is that the water in the copper condenser dish is hand-ladled to keep it cool throughout both distillations, whereas most Filipino stills that have a constant source flowing through the condenser dish.

Older batches also simply go by the name Campanilla on the label of these bottles.