AGAVE

INTRODUCTION

In the textbooks, agaves are “perennial, xerophytic, succulents with a crassulacean acid metabolism.” These are botanical terms for a super-asparagus, a plant from the asparagaceae botanical family that evolved to thrive in arid marginal terrains with low rainfall and high sunshine. The Conquistadores called the agave the 'tree of marvels,' because of its anomalous biology and its multi-tasking ability to meet human wants.

The agave prospers at any altitude with low rain and lots of sun, from the high Andes to the lower ranges of the Sierra Madre and even down to drier coastal areas.

Depending on their type, agave plants can take anywhere from 8 to 30 years to reach maturity, when, unlike fruit trees or vines, they die.

While too much rain kills the agave, temperatures below 4 Celsius also threaten it. The warmer the ambient temperature throughout the entire growth cycle of the plant, the higher the final Brix count of the agave juices, the vital potential for conversion to alcohol.

BOTANICAL ORIGIN

Like potatoes and corn (maize), the agave is native to the Americas. Before the discovery of the Americas, agaves were mostly corralled up on in Central America, in the area between the southern US and El Salvador, although some, such as Agave Cocui, over-spilt into South America; and others, like Agave Caymanensis, had drifted out into the Caribbean.

GLOBALIZATION

After Columbus made it to the Americas in 1492, the agaves stampeded out of their American reservations, and now promiscuously propagate globally wherever they like the climate. The species-swapping between the Americas and the rest of the world is known the Columbian Exchange.

But for agave it was really the Victorian Exchange, since under the British Queen-Empress their seeds were exported to her dominions: firstly, Agave Sisalana (also known as Sisal), for making ships’ rope and, secondly, other more voluminous types of the Agave Americana and Salmiana families (used in Mexico to make Mezcal) for low-maintenance, appropriate technology hedging systems for railways. This uniquely British safety idea was later adopted as generalized farm fencing in her hot dry colonial lands; and the descendants of those hedges have been the collateral legacy for today's agave spirits distillers based outside the Americas.

Thanks to both Victoria's agave initiatives, today the crop has spread mostly in ex-British colonies in Africa, Australia, India and South East Asia where the original hedges from more than a century ago have grown today into large invasive natural "pest" clusters in the wild whenever the combined factors of soil and climate have fostered them.

PROCREATION

The agave is as creatively inventive in its reproductive habits as one would expect from a plant that waits for long-nosed bats to poke their proboscis in its petals for pollinating. It has a stalk that Freud could only dream of, which shoots up to five meters and splatters seeds when its time comes. It also literally throws out “pups” ready-to-grow, or it sends out seedlings. Pollination and seeding shuffle the DNA and improving the plants’ genetic adaptability and defense mechanisms.

Botanists catalogue over 200 formal agave sub-species, but there is really no telling, since classifying agave is like designating each and every mongrel dog its own species. Like your average randy mutt, agave will swap their genes at the wag of a tail, and passing pollen between agave types is a lot easier than crossing an Irish Wolfhound with a Pekinese!

Today, Mexico has laws on agave miscegenation that are the botanical equivalent to Nazi racial hygiene laws, driven by purely fictional concepts of genetic purity. Mexican law dictates an arbitrary, unnatural lineage for Tequila's raw material, the Agave Tequilana Weber Var. Azul, and forces growers to stop plantation agaves pollinating promiscuously by undercutting their release of seeds.

Consequently, they grow Agave Tequilana Weber in Jalisco, not from seeds but from multi-generational seedlings that are effectively clones, with no genetic diversification to develop immunity to diseases, which is why growers need pesticides to protect the inbred plants. In contrast, wild agave mostly reproduces through seeds, shuffling its DNA and breeding resistance, reducing the need for pesticides.

Outside the Americas, Queen Victoria had certainly not envisaged the role of mega-bats in the agave mating, but some botanists suggest that the Pteropodidae, mega-bats prevalent in the non-American Southern hemisphere, such as in Australia and Southern Africa, might have accelerated the natural reproduction rate and adaptability of those agave. Also, genetically, over the decades, her agaves have interbred and evolved into distinctive, regionally adopted, hardy and disease-resistant subspecies, such as the Agave Australis and Agave Karoo.

The Agave Sisalana, in contrast, slow to reproduce naturally, and adverse to natural interbreeding, has mostly stayed roped in within its original plantation boundaries.

THE QUINTESSENCE OF THE AGAVE

Despite their infinite variety, all agave plants contain two basic elements - inulin-rich juices which, when fermented make the ethanol that humans like, and woody fiber or cellulose, which when fermented makes wood alcohol, or methanol, that does not like humans.

All agave plants are in principle identical in taste since their "quintessence," the agave inulin, is aroma-neutral. However, there are three different components that affect a particular sub-species’ suitability for spirits production: their fiber content, the amount of extractable juices, and most importantly, the Brix count of these juices, that is, their potential for conversion into distilled spirits. A balance of the lowest possible fiber and highest possible Brix in the juices gives the best output of agave spirits per kilo of agave.

While continuous and homogeneous exposure to warm weather throughout the growing cycle and the plant's level of maturity determine the Brix, the genetics of each agave sub-species predisposes the fiber content. So, no matter where they grow it, Agave Sisalana has high fiber content, and distillers don’t usually bother with it.

THE ALOE VERA SUCCULENT

The Aloe Vera (also known as the Arabian Aloe), a proto-agave, evolved convergently to the Agave (the American Aloe) in the Old World, more specifically, as the name implies, the Arabian Peninsula. Using the return ticket for the Columbian Exchange, it is widely cultivated today in the Americas, where it is more commonly known as either Savila or Sabila .

Because of its genetically-fixed low Brix content it is unsuitable for direct fermentation and is only good for human consumption when its highly toxic anthraquinones are removed. Today, detoxified unfermented Aloe Vera sap is added to health-market soft drinks, mostly in Asia, for its prebiotic health effect and thickening qualities, although some liqueur makers also use its juices, usually counterbalancing the Arabian Aloe's sap's low Brix content with the sweetness of the American Aloe's juices.

AGAVE & HEALTH

For botanists, the agaves are vegetables, which are universally considered healthy, even if disliked by carnivores. This makes the agave anomalous, since distillers usually use grains (i.e., the seeds of grasses), roots (like potatoes or cassava), or fruits (like grapes or apples), or sweet grasses (like sugar cane) to create distilled spirits.

Adding to its distinctiveness, and its health benefits, the agave is one of the few plants in the world that uses inulin rather than starch to store energy and nutrients. Inulin is a prebiotic that boosts the immune system, calcium absorption and bone density, and encourages beneficial microbial flora in the digestive tract, which is why it is used for baby formula, as well as, we would assert, the fermentation base for a superior type of spirits class, the pure agave spirits. Inulin is also naturally, and self-evidently, gluten-free.

In summary, agave spirits are the world's only inulin vegetable spirit!

THE USES OF THE AGAVE'S JUICES

The juice extracted from the agave pina has four uses. The first is the inulin used in the food industry as a healthy, flavor-enhancing food additive. For example, one liquefied strawberry in a yogurt mixed with inulin can taste like two, while adding prebiotic qualities at the same time.

For making alcohol, what transforms inulin into a fermentable medium - using heat, enzymes, or acids - is hydrolysis.

When concentrated to 74 Brix (starting from around 25 Brix), hydrolyzed agave juice makes agave syrup, a low glycemic-index sweetener, originally created for those afflicted with Type II Diabetes.

Concentrated, non-hydrolyzed agave juice is called simply liquid agave inulin, which after dehydration through dry spraying, becomes agave inulin powder.

And, of course, hydrolyzed agave juice, once fermented and distilled, becomes agave spirits.

ECOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

Agave grows best on marginal land where it does not compete with other crops consumed by humans. It also uses less of the world's limited sweet water resources.

However, like other forms of intensive agro-tech such as meat and poultry, the eco-agave model fails when agave is grown on plantations that are often irrigated and artificially fertilized to increase the plant's weight. In places like Mexico, it is sold by weight rather than its Brix content, and irrigation raises the weight and also lowers the Brix while also wasting water!

Single-variety, monocultural plantation-grown agave, like the Agave Tequilana Weber and Agave Espadin, also harm the environment, and plantation workers, by needing aggressive pesticides like benzalkonium chloride and Didecyldimethyl ammonium chloride, which are still legal in Mexico and are found in agave syrups from there, despite being illegal in the E.U.

In contrast to Jalisco, in some parts of Mexico (e.g., Durango), Australia (e.g., SA and NSW), India (e.g. Deccan Plateau), Peru, Ecuador, Myanmar, and others, the agaves are usually foraged from the wild, where they grow abundantly and naturally with no irrigation, fertilizers or pesticides, and so makes the resulting agave spirit more eco-sustainable and intrinsically more organic.

? Martin Grassl