Banuelos is located in Zacatecas, just about 10km outside of the DO for Tequila. They started producting this blue weber (tequilana) agave spirit long before the DO for Tequila was defined in the 1970's. Essentially this is classic tequila in every sense but in regulatory name. In fact, it's more like the Tequila of yesteryear before most modern Tequila switched to industrialized farming and production shortcuts. They ferment with wild yeast and all of the agave is tahona crushed. The tequilana is cooked above ground, so no smoke here. Since they're technically in the Mezcal DO geographically speaking, Banuelos decided to label this as Mezcal since all Tequila is Mezcal, but not all Mezcal is Tequila. It's a bit of a middle finger to the regulators since they were making this Tequila long before the name became a political football. If you love classic Tequila, this is a cannot miss bottling at a very reasonable price.