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 thos