Cinco Sentidos has become one of the essential names in Mexican agave spirits because it does not try to sand down the category into something simple or commercial. Each release is a document of place, process, and producer, and La Colección Mixteca may be the clearest expression of that mission. Built around the mountainous Mixteca region of Oaxaca and Puebla, the collection highlights small-batch spirits made in rustic local distilleries, often using old methods and regional traditions that have nearly disappeared from the modern market. This Edition 4 Azul is one of the most fascinating in the series, produced by maestro mezcalero couple Atelo Ramírez and Laura Arriaga in Reyes Metzontla, Puebla, from cultivated Agave tequilana Weber, the same blue agave made famous by tequila. But this is not tequila in disguise. The agaves were brought from Morelos, roasted for five days in an underground conical pit with mesquite and pirúl leaves, hand-mashed with wooden mallets, dry-fermented for four days, then fermented another six days with spring water. The spirit was twice distilled in a hybrid still of galvanized steel, clay, and copper, with the común resting two months before the second distillation in July 2023. Bottled in June 2024 at 46.8% ABV from a tiny 304-liter batch, this is a vivid, mineral, deeply textured snapshot of what happens when blue agave leaves Jalisco behind and enters the Mixteca tradition. Expect green herbs, wet stone, subtle smoke, cooked agave, floral l