Damian and Raquel, the founders of El Tigre, officially started the project in 2011, but the roots date back to the early 2000s, when Damian’s Tío Chimino, an accomplished magueyero (agave farmer) first introduced him to the Patricio García family, and Damian, who had grown up in Mexico City and Detroit, began developing a greater interest in the culture of his family’s ancestral home in Atempa-Xulchuchio. Since then, the couple have hosted mezcal tastings in their home in Mexico City as way of spreading Atempa’s culture of mezcal, using the proceeds to help support and preserve the web of agricultural and artisan communities that all play important parts in Atempa’s traditional social, religious and economic systems. Oven #5 roasted 140 wild papalote heads harvested from the iron-rich red clay of Tiger Hill, where Tio Genio hunts for his ripe maguey during the dry season. The papalote maguey matures in ten to twelve years on average, and is castrated by cutting its thick trunk nine months before harvest as is dictated by tradition. This ensures sugar-laden piñas that will develop the sweet, complex flavors that characterize spirits made by this special community.