So, gary, paul is a lebaneseamerican and nature writer of 30 books, a franciscan brother and a contemplative garden designer. Hes received Macarthur Fellowship and the land literary award for nonfiction, and he was included in book me readers list of visionaries changing the world. His latest book, the current book here that its a pleasure to read and itll help you to understand more about it gave him a scout killer all year. Its called the garbage spirits. The past present and future of moscone. And before we go into it a little further, gary, i want to i want to ive learned so much reading the book and reading about you and meeting with you. And you have, you know, tons of knowledge, but how did you get from in your at becoming an ethnobotanist botanist and studying native plants and then moving towards a god . What was that trip for you . Well, thats a great question and i think the easiest way to sum it up is that i was very interested in local food when was younger. And as i got older, had more arthritis and back pain and all of that i switched to local drink. At the. But i want to Say Something about drink for a second and i hope this isnt preaching, but i think its important to talk about responsible and agaves, one of the plants that responsible drinking better than other plants. So thats i did it. They use about one fifth of the amount of water that they drink to produce about the same amount of edible or drinkable biomass as corn or sorghum or wheat does. So use agave as your model for responsible drinking. So you talk about agaves and agaves are, you know, theres over 240 something. I think that are in existence. And you studied and you mentioned but what makes agave is used in in the skull and tequila so special why agave why its so special. Well theres the most example of a paradigm shift in how we at what we used to just call a plant and now we arent calling agave is a plant anymore at all. Were calling them a hollow by giant because the microbes on the plan are essential to their establishment even germination, growth and survival. And those microbes are come to the plant with the rains a drain down the middle of the plant, because each leaf is like a gutter, really. And rich possibility for growth, but also the unique flavors the more the most conflict a complex mix flavors and fragrance of of any distilled spirit come from these microbes. So if there is. 2000 times more microbes on an agave plant than the genome of the planet itself in terms of its cells and molecules, all that, why not just say it more than a plant . And thats this word hollow buyout means. And so its a its a really interesting thing. Were not looking at agaves in isolation, but were looking at them in terms being the hub, the crossroads or focal point of a community that not only includes microbes in the soil on the leaves, but bats like the great texas bats, pollen that all agave butterflies, bees and and many other animals besides ourselves that drink and and eat agave, flesh. And you you in the book, you talk about the whole distillation process and how the agaves come with those. Im talking about there. But in and then the result is different skulls have all these different flavors that are just come the agave and i couldnt understand i mean i, i love mezcal and i have the flavors for it but how does that get from the raw agave to the mezcal thats been distilled and survive all that. Yeah. Thats a great question. So i agaves. Have a fairly brutal, brutal time in deserts or on the cliffs of tropical areas. And so like the best apples, apple they carry with them through life all their suffering into the bottle and their reaction to suffering is to try to buffer themselves from heat and drought stress, even cold stress in the winter and salinity animal predation by making all this incredible set of chemicals, its really a chemical factory for trying to resist, survive these onslaughts that happened in desert areas any plan and so theyre theyre what i think the songwriter john hajek called mass tours of disaster that that they take all of those disasters and distill it into these really potent chemicals that we viscerally you dont need to know much about microbiology and all that. The five syllable names the yeast and bacteria are the book that are in the book. But you what you know is that when you take a sip of mescal it seems so and the chances mescal tastes like thyme that one flavor or fragrance another hits your nose and then your palate. Two thirds of what we call flavor is really fragrance that hits us even before it hits our lips. And so all of those are kind and traded in the agave plant. And unlike beer or thats usually usually using one or two yeast, sometimes in a fermentation that the key place where all this alchemy happens before the distillation. Theres 30 different kinds of yeast and 70 different kinds of micro labial bacteria that that do the distillation and fermentation work and each of them is like a lock and key. Each of those microbes in the fermentation vat is pulling out a different flavor or fragrance, and thats, you know, no, its just incomparable to whiskey, scotch, rum vodka that usually only have one yeast or at most good brewers or beer four or five years throw yeast and 70 bacteria means that theyre pulling things out of the plant at a at a level of complexity that we dont see in anything else we drink its more like kimchi than like any distill spirit. Yeah and you go that in detail in the book more information. But how did you get involved with mezcal in sonora and other states when you were younger . This isnt going to be the bootleg story, is it . Yeah. So this is a bootleg story, right . My uncles and one of my grandfather, theres a lebanese to sent made arak is like ouzo and flavored grape distillate thats popular in the middle east and lebanon particular. A similar thing is called and turkey and ouzo. And in greece and so it was family distillation of it wasnt a commercial product before they left lebanon as what we might call refugees of war climate change. Even then locust plagues and a five year drought that killed all their crops. So they hopped on boats and ended up in mexico, in the u. S. , but they didnt up their distillation habit and when i was a kid, i saw this still had somehow gotten from to the u. S. It was shared by all my uncles and cousins and family. So they were bootlegging in the u. S. And my father always complained that he couldnt play baseball with the kids until he spent a half hour or 40 minutes stomping on grapes in the bathtub for his grandfathers. My grandfathers distillation habit. So by the time of age, i was going to say nora and i started to realize that they had a very special mescal. Their name, baka nora. But it too was a legal that there was still a place, a prohibition kind of law. And that actually made the number of bootleggers proliferate rather than suppressing them. So i started to meet these elderly the maestros mescal arrows that were really competent artisans that could make remarkable spirits and befriended them even by the time i was 26 i was helping with batches of bacon or another cinnamon distillate called late uja, which is the same last year. You get in that you are in dessert. So yeah, we its its crazy because i was just in spain and i was ordering at this restaurant a mezcal and they were out of the mescal. So the bartender out and hes like, let me recommend this, let me recommend this. And hes from spain and he fell in love with mescal and he was it went to a hakka and visited other states and. Hes like, well, im going to i want you to try this. I fear. And im like, you know, i never wanted to try it, you see, of different mexicans and im like, im fine with mescal, but what i see is made from agave, but its because that no matter what about that known the unknown, you know, these it cannot be called tequila and it cannot be called mescal. Its called fear. But it tasted a skull. Yeah, its wonderful. Can you talk about that that im naming at the nation . Yeah. So you know, just like burgundy and and share is and and show. Wines. Spirits have a denomination of orange and in an area with you. The plants are and and fermented distilled and you can only use name for that particular place like roquefort cheese or theres you know hundreds or thousands of examples the tequila guys quit calling their product mezcal de tequila which. It was called for centuries and started to call it tequila for the town that was the base of the industry. And my my little puppy out there must have heard me say tequila because sometimes when she cant go to sleep, she gets a bottle of tequila. No, im kidding. But. But point is that that the inhales go in the very area that we think the origins of distillation happen. Prehistoric in mexico. The nickname was ryuichi and some of the villages. And it has a smoky, earthy taste, because its usually fermented not in barrels or aboveground but stucco, lime, mapo distillery that that is a traditional way of of liming pits, lime and all of that. Like you were stuck going a wall. And so it has this incredible, earthy, smoky flavor and its just on the Colima Colima political and then down to the coast i first experienced on the coast about 40 kilometers north of puerto vallarta, and i was just well, it was so unique. Its crazy. I mean, again, we love we love mezcal and i started with tequila and the mezcal. And i dont want to go beyond mezcal because theres so much and the people who create mezcal, the mescalero and mezcal, let us, the females, and this is our life. And you what youre youre supporting them. So thats why we do that. And you talk, about your coauthor, David Trudeau called the book agave spirits. What was the significance of these drinks historically you called it agave spirits historically significant we wanted to reign remind that even though mescal and tequila undergone these booms and theyre all over the world. Most of the consumers of tequila mescal are actually in the united states, europe, not in mexico. Now, in the Big Companies are owned in london and belgium and rome and madrid. Theyre theyre still this deep Spiritual Connection to both the plants and aztec history. There was the goddess of maya. Well, that was linked to pork, a fermented beverage before she was adopted or was adopted by, tequila rose. And so there are statues and and mosaic of maya well, all over the tequila area now. But there was a religious component this and the micro distillation that happened pre historically was really sacramental i mean they might get just a bottle of this at this out of the prehistoric distillation that archeologists have really discovered just within the last ten years or so. Still a lot debate about it. But the point is if you only got this, it was more like sacramental wine that was ceremonially and. Theres a lot of lore about that and and ceremonial grounds with the archeology just have excavated so i wanted to remind us, even though we may think that tequila is part of a crassly capitalistic, secular material tradition, theres this deep, deep tie in mexico, and most of the pollan caves are tavernas or be not us where its made. Theres always a santo in the corner that people pray to before they start their distillation. And thats true. I think and yes, tequila is just its all about the brand offense to anyone who loves. Its about the money its big. Theyre going in. Theyre the tequila companies are stealing agaves from the mezcal letters from oaxaca from other lands. But you know, its very spiritual because individuals that have learned from their parents and their grandparent and their great grandparents how to make this they do. And you when you when you make them a skull and you burn it and you they put a sometimes on top of it a cross before thats in the roasting pit. So is very, very spiritual. But you know agave is what do they have to teach about how to live because the world is getting warmer and. Its not really pretty, but how what can they teach us about how to live in a dry world . God bless. Yeah, i i have to say, lot of my work the last ten or 15 years is how can we adapt agriculture, our Food Production to climate change. And my next book is a cookbook from desert regions. I say these ways for thousands years, the desert dwellers of learned to be frugal with the use of water sun drying things and rehydrating them during the few weeks each year where they have water and a of other magic that they do reduce the amount of water use grinding into a fine character. You can just add a little bit of water to rather than having to boil the heck out of something. They eat it. And and so we i really have two chapters in the book with with david contributing. He was equal partners in everything we wrote about the future of agriculture in places like Chihuahua Coahuila texas, new mexico, arizona that arizona is in the worst water crisis in history, that here in texas is phenomenal nationally. We lost 30,000 more farmworker crews dying in the heat last year than any more any year in history. How are we going to have an agriculture where those who bring us our daily bread are dying the fields trying to bring crops in to us and that when we we eat it, drink it, we understood and where it comes from and are selecting things that are the most frugal and friendly foods and drinks can do. So i dont think were going to see a tequila. Monica culture what we what david and call a blue desert where you have one genetic individual of one variety of one species of agave. I would on hundreds of thousands of were going to see agro forestry where agave is prickly mesquite trees, pecans or whatever are integrated with annual crops like like chilies and, and dry beans, millet and things like that where the plants are complementing each other in, their water use, shading plants underneath them and using far less for the amount food produced per hectare than anything we see in the now. Ive been going to the canary islands, my wife, they probably have the best exam pools. I know theres a huge canary and or each latino population here that this gentleman knows far more about than do. But the point is theyre doing agriculture on four inches of rain that we to emulate here because texas and arizona biggest among the biggest wasters arizona uses more water per hectare than more acre than any state in the country. And texas far behind. So we talked about a guy in sacramento and there the role in the borderlands, but just discussed that. What do you foresee as the future of farming here in texas . I mean, what is that . How different is it going be or whats going to happen . Well, from onset, i want to say im not interested or or or in favor of culturally appropriating things from mexico and, you know, just growing up here, there are five places as in california, that are already growing in blue tequila, agaves. And they cant the product tequila. But theyre also looking at california agaves, which i think is very healthy. So we can emulate what weve seen in mexico, but not culturally appropriate appropriate, appropriate what they have. And and texas has some garbage out in big ben that that can be used for mezcal and. Then the Hotel Industry is another example of something was in texas all the way through prohibition longer. We also had a garbage production in arizona up prohibition and then then the market got flooded by things from the outside and people gave up still. So i think theres a precedence for arizona, mexico and texas taking desert plants, not just agave sin. So tolar deserts, boon plants but domesticating them for food and medicine and drink in a way that can save milk and or billions of gallons of water each year. So i cant predict the but i think agriculture here in texas within 20 years is not to look like anything we see today. I mean, its just going to be thrown out the window alfalfa or cotton. You already go to lubbock and you can see that the system is broken. Well, im not talking about the future. Its broken now. So what are they going to do with thousands abandoned cotton fields in lubbock except let lubbock grow to three times the size and then realize that condominiums per use more water than the cotton did. So we really have to save our farmland and we have to save it with crops that use less water and are pulling down more carbon from the atmosphere to offset climate change. You talk about in the book, we everyone thinks its mescalero its the men who are creating the mezcal who run the palenque. A lot of these men are supported by women in the home as well. And fields as well in the creation. And then a lot of women i think are, you know a lot of times theyre people, you know, in oaxaca, you have a lot of people whove left wanting to come to the u. S. To be laborers and the women of only ones that are left. And theyre the ones that are becoming maestra guerillas. Can you talk a little bit about that in nam, who youve met there and stuff . Yeah i mean, theres theres really a sea change in the last 20 years from an all male industry, at least to outsiders. I think what youre saying is it never was a but now in sonora alone, theres an association of mistress mescalero. It has over 50 women that are not only do the distillation and they they are selecting for flavors fragrances that the men havent necessarily picked up. But there are also really at promoting their products. We have them at the tucson agave festival, a special pow panel of women each year. Thats happening next week. The marfa festival also featured my guest for a special there. My favorite is a woman named saucy mai from solaire de vega and mica, and shes about five foot four and carries about a two foot long machete on her hip. And i would not want to make her mad. I guess she wields tap machete for weeds and other things, like a master. Like i like. I like a martial arts master. But she grew up in her grandfathers palenque and a distillation platform in a little where she used to swing on a rope out from palenque over the creek and come back if she got sick. Her mother rubbed her down with mescal to keep her from having skin rashes and things when she wanted to fall asleep. Crawl into the the wooden and theyd put a mosquito net over her and shed sleep in. The mescal fermentation vat. So it was her whole life went away, got a College Degree and said, now that i have a College Degree, what do i most love in the world . And she right back and was the first woman that promoted fair mescal so like as a teenager she had worked on Fair Trade Coffee on the walker border down by isthmus and so shes doing incredible innovation on how mescal is made and sold and she does not want sell any of her mescal overseas. She said its so good that i think the mexican appreciates it more than europeans and the u. S. Does. And i dont want to go through tens of of dollars of getting lawyers to fill out papers for me to export. I want to keep it in my community. And it costs so much to to the producer to the mescalero or mescalero to be able to sell it and outside of mexico, that taxes their costs. They their money, they lose their revenue because they had to pay those costs. And its one of the things you talk about is all the challenges that theyre these mexican and, you know, is there going to be another generation . I worry because i went to see this buy from america letter, you know, and she in her home, she had all these bottles of, you know, gallons. And she was there and she was leading me. And we she film. I bought, i think, ten bottles. And she filled them up. But then theres a little bratty teenager running up and down the stairs and. I they were talking in spanish. I was listening. And he just wanted some money so we can go spend it. Im like, you should. And i never know is there is are there worries about the future generations not just from the perspective of whos going to take up the mantle, but like all the challenges theyre facing and what can we do to support them . Well, you know, calexico its a real tough situation the my you see all the ads that look like the marlboro man this its such a tough business to cut those agave heads to look like the pineapple ads that go into the the roasting ovens that they ever shoot really short lifespan in that career at 1012 years it at most because its so hard unless youre just you zen masters chopping the but but theyve been replaced by workers that come in and harvest a dozen other crops. It just dont have the skills that those old humidors have. Why . Because a humidor is sons now in l. A. Or san or or tucson. And some of them are coming back to take over there. Their fathers businesses. Its the brain drain from rural areas that we see even in texas. Im not telling most of you anything new and so it really takes the dignity of the profession being elevated so that kids see that growing up that theres still hard work with it. Youre not going to get out of hard work. You can do labor saving steps like using shredders instead of pounding out their garbage 800 times to get it all chopped. But its not going to be something every kid wants to do. And so i think there is a loss. The traditional knowledge thats been handed down from generation to generation that i worry about because mobile crews of workers that are just paid on contract just dont have the skills they dont understand how to cut agave to make the pena appropriately. They cut it too much or too little. That leaves, you know, that affects it. And i worry selfishly because i love my school and i like, oh, am i going to be able to have this for 20 more years the rest of my life . I always bring back my bottle. Yeah, but i dont think its youre too old to just go down there and become a mescalero. Oh, no, no, no, no. Thats the man. I see them. I think there is a Bright Future for. I mean, i can. I can feel your passion. I have a passion for drinking thats about to do. Have any questions from the audience . So wait until the they get the mic to. We have two young ladies over here and then a gentleman up front as well. And sebastians to help me answer the questions, ill answer multiple choice questions. So the hard won she gets it okay. I was just curious if they have that ms. Garlic they have that friendly tequila. Yes. Yes. And david we can explain why we didnt like my coauthor is a champion of that with his tequila interchange project that also evaluates the practices on firearms for and tequila in. About five states already and if they save i think the entry point is 5 of the the plants to let them flower for the bats to do the nectar most tequila never flower theyre just cut down before the flowers start never goes up. But if people wait let the plants flower and produce seed and then use them for mescal and they that for 10 of their total revolving harvest the of the field they get this certification that then goes into special in the u. S. And mexico. So its been very successful except the worst drought years when the farmers can afford to set many plants aside for flowering because it isnt it true that if the plant flowers then theres less sugar in the in the peanut for to make the mescal and thats why they they it down before flowers because then when all that sugar going up into the flower there theres only partial truth to that and in other words we had a mescal last night for the chocolate one from southern alice. Go. And it says on the label. Held back three years after flowering so the plant can season so these remarkable guys have never heard of becca hammock efficiency the way weve looked at it like in the u. S. Since henry ford they know the plant seasons after flowering all sugars and flow into that and it to ferment in the field with this astonishing number microbes that make it richer and they can sell their bottles for 50 to 70 at the palanca street to customers where they dont do and they mechanize that they might get 15 to 24 for their bottles. Its its quality over quantity and no one would ever claim that they produce more per hectare of a beverage. Its of such high quality that. I prefer going to the palanca directly i have that luxury to travel but its much more interesting thing to me and and these guys are doing something really valuable and when they save those seeds like cardinal morena does in, the midst of that blue desert of tequilas, and he plants them out, the plants, those seeds look as different as. Everyone in this room does from one another. They arent genetically uniform clones of each other. They look like ten species of agave. They have all different kinds of flavors. So Carlos Camarena of an old family that i think goes back to the dora dynasty, is now doing remarkable things hes doing. Shed grown agave from the blue tequila as well. That dont look like tequila as well. And i tequila Regulatory Commission just doesnt know what the hell to do with them. So this is an act of among great producers the the lady, you know, the lady over here. Did you have a question me is it somebody else up front. Okay. No. Hi. Thank you. Hi. Thank for your contribution. Im looking forward to reading and i have kind of a guinea back to the issue of the microbes and the question of how the complexity of the of the drinks aside from the conservation issues or alongside the conservation is the issues that mr. Ohara was about, about provenance and stealing and all that kind of stuff. Ive kind of started move cultivated, almost purely cultivated spirits because i worry about the conservation while, you know, issues if i can get them directly and i know whats going on, thats great. But one of the questions i have is when theyre under cultivation and there were it seems to me, would be lower amounts of secondary metabolites. A. B. More compounds, stress, stress that might make for a better spirit. So im curious if you have any information that or yeah, youre absolutely its a mixed bag that now because of the mescal boom most of the oaxacan misquotes are just made from the same truth species. I mean, tequila really isnt a its own species. Its an gusta folia that is the the agave of oaxaca. And now for a shortage of tequila plants, theyre kind slowly moving truckloads plants up from what i can not, telling the Regulatory Commission theyre not tequila plants to the shortage and thousands of acres in sinaloa is growing into that so genetically uniform they can them quicker they dont aged out the kind of wonderful and and and richness that half the people in this room have. No im kidding. You know, there are something that comes with plants that are longer that make them richer. And those phytochemicals that you mentioned and 60 of wild agaves in mexico are now at risk and overharvesting for mezcal is a major risk. Its also climate change. Its urbanization, clearing areas. So i only get wild mescaline, wild, wild species to drink when i ive seen the plantation around them that theyre cultivating them there and kind of avoid spreading in most cases for the same reason that i avoid tequilas except the ancestral tequilas tequilas that are doing everything the right way so the artisanal mescaline and the ancestral tequilas and i never mention a brand i just dont want to do brand promotion for Kendall Jenner or George Clooney or or Lenny Kravitz haters. These i dont know why i dont buy kendalls. No, no, no, no, no. I mean, when we when go, its about you see locals, the small producers, theyre the ones that are replanting and theyre the ones that are making sure to protect the bad and they have you buy more bottles, you spend more because you know that that went to help protect and save the bats and they understand that the bats help the diversity of their garden stuff but would you be for like in the plantations associated with jenner Kendall Jenner up the neck this tissue if mind id left id love to see her with the little i love to see her in the fields out there. Yeah i got a question right here, gentlemen, welcome tales on what youre talking about. Now youve described a tradition, the craft of true tequilas in moscow. I wonder you observed in researching your book the industrialization of tequila and like. The 900 agave bottles that are made and just what your observations have been about industrial farming. Yeah, i would guess that 90 of the margaritas that are sold along the river walk are. 9 agave and 51 cane sugar, you know, and i dont need to name brains or brands restaurants, but thats what margaritas have been the last 40 years in the united states. Ive been the the tequila mixed is not 100 agave spirits. And of course, you also have some incredible great mescaline, tequila bars here that only have hundred percent agave spirits. So im the people in texas, in san antonio and that that stick to the 100 . And theres been in dallas whove literally poured all their old stuff when realized this and at press conferences and said, were getting rid of all the mixed old tequilas. But its its more than just out one distinction. The of spending and and in oaxaca that looks like the blue agave and holy skull they are not waiting for the plants to mature they theyre theyre dragging them out of fields with backhoes and stuff putting them in diffusers that blast all the sugars out of immature plants and you get sugar but you dont get any of those complex phytochemicals that we were just talking about. So they add color and flavor back in at the last step, theyre bottling. Its crazy. Its crazy nuts. And and book you go into the book about that and its it really saddens me because my passion first was with tequila and then when i started going to luaka it moved to mezcal. But the stories you in here about the industrial, its not new, its not recent its been happening because its a business and its multinational and its all about money, which is very sad. But in the book, you know, i recommend you purchase it. Its its there. And we have to i do we have one more question in back. Can speak a little bit about the the different agaves and the liquors that come from them youve mentioned so tall tequila and. Yeah theres so are there others and yeah what are the differences. Yeah there are comitato. Theres barca nora. Theres rae si and, and some of the things subsumed under the denomination of origin of mezcal used to mescal day from a region or whatever, and dropped that. And now that theyre coming. But there was a that went around mexico in. 1760 he was by the viceroy to to describe all the fermented and distilled beverages in mexico and there were more than 70 or 80 that he described 40 to 50 of which were distinctive mescal, sometimes using pork and then distilling that. And thats still done in a few. So what we see in the marketplace in the u. S. Is just the tip of the iceberg of enormous, historic diversity. And theres a lot about in the book these forgotten mescal. Ales. And theyre theyre distinct because of the terroir, the soil. Theyre distinct because of the plant species or variety. And theyre despite because the craftsmanship, tradition, say sebastian mentioned so i want to thank our session is meat we have very little time but i want to thank gary for being here and sharing his information. Thank you for the beautiful book. If want to purchase this book, the nowhere bookshop outside the tent in the festival is a place to go for book sales. I gary is going to be signing books that ill be signing there from for for the next 20 minutes or so. And i just have to say this is the most dilute mescal ive ever had. I mean, i just i dont think it has much flavor. But thank you all for coming. Thank to the book festival and we have a Wonderful Community here. Were partner cities as a city