The Agave Advocate

David Suro-Piñera wants more U.S. consumers to know the wide world of agave-based spirits.

- Maddy Sweitzer-Lammé

ON A RECENT EVENING at Tequilas, a restaurant in Philadelphia, I was offered a small bowl of what looked like gnarled slices of dried pineapple. It was roasted agave, of the same variety that had produced the mezcal in the small glass cup in front of me on the bar. I chewed the agave, marveling at its sweet-savory balance and the subtle smoke flavor that emanated-nothing like the intensity that I had come to associate with mezcal.

David Suro-Piñera, the owner of Tequilas, had brought the cooked agave back to the restaurant after his most recent trip to Mexico. Suro-Piñera is a longtime advocate for agave spirits and is the author, with ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan, of the newly released Agave Spirits: The Past, Present, and Future of Mezcals. He also operates a small company called Siembra Spirits, which takes a highly traceable, farmer-first approach to importing small-production mezcals, tequilas, and other agave spirits, with the goal of preserving Indigenous systems of farming and distilling agave.

Talking about agave with Suro-Piñera is akin to discussing the Bible with the pope: His knowledge is so deep and intuitive that it draws you in, even if you consider yourself agnostic, or perhaps (shudder) more of a gin drinker.