Puebla mezcal: local agaves, family distilleries and a growing territory

Southern Puebla has an agave distilling tradition in the Mixteca and Tehuacán valley. Local names include papalote, pichomel and candelillo, and makers use different agaves and stills. In San Luis Atolotitlán, residents have worked to restore agave populations. The protected Mezcal territory expanded again in May 2026.

Southern Puebla shares an agave landscape with Oaxaca

The Mixteca extends across the Puebla–Oaxaca border. Its small distilleries work with local agaves and equipment assembled from materials such as copper, clay and galvanized steel. The family distilleries of San Pablo Ameyaltepec, Reyes Metzontla and the Zapotitlán area form part of this shared distilling landscape, documented in Cinco Sentidos’ Colección Mixteca. ²

Agave names vary within Puebla and across state borders

Papalote can refer to different species: Delfino Tobón’s Puebla expression uses A. potatorum, while Aguerrido and Sanzekan use the name for A. cupreata in Guerrero.

In the Tehuacán valley, communities help renew the agaves

In San Luis Atolotitlán, Agave potatorum spirits were used for community celebrations before demand grew in regional markets. After agaves disappeared from some sites, residents worked with researchers and the Tehuacán–Cuicatlán reserve to restore populations in their natural habitat. A 2017 study describes that work. ⁷

Community rules included protected harvesting areas, limits on livestock access and replanting. Growers exchanged experience with Guerrero’s cupreata producers in 2006 and 2015. Keeping enough mature plants to flower, raising young agaves and protecting their growing sites supports the next generation of raw material.

The protected territory now includes Puebla and Huaquechula

Puebla’s Mezcal territory includes 118 of its 217 municipalities after the additions published on 20 May 2026. The municipality of Puebla and Huaquechula joined an existing territory that already included places such as Caltepec, Zapotitlán and Santa Inés Ahuatempan. ⁵

Some local producers sell their spirits as destilado de agave. Territorial inclusion is one requirement for using the protected name Mezcal; producers and products must also qualify.

Puebla accounted for 3.26% of Mexico’s certified mezcal production reported by COMERCAM for 2025, before the May 2026 territorial expansion. ⁶

Puebla’s workshops vary in milling, fermentation and stills

Delfino Tobón’s workshop in San Pablo Ameyaltepec follows a sequence of underground roasting, mechanical crushing, fermentation and copper distillation. His pechuga recipe adds chicken, mole and previously distilled spirit to the fermented agave. ¹

Abdias De La Luz Rodriguez changes the order for Luneta’s Papalometl + Cupreata: after pit roasting, he ferments the whole hearts in bullhide vessels, crushes them with wooden mallets and ferments them again in the hides. Distillation follows, first in copper and then in a steel pot with a wooden neck. ⁸

Still materials also differ between the named workshops. Atelo Ramírez and Laura Arriaga’s pichomel blends use a combination of galvanized steel, clay and copper; Félix Macedas Jinez’s candelillo uses a galvanized steel boiling chamber, a cooking-pot cap and a copper condensing coil. ²

Producer profiles from southern Puebla

Delfino and Nallely’s mole poblano pechuga

In San Pablo Ameyaltepec, Delfino Tobón Mejía makes a Pechuga de Mole Poblano. He roasts agave underground and uses a mechanical mill. His wife Nallely prepares the chicken and mole added to the still with fermented papalote and some previously distilled spirit. Cinco Sentidos describes this combined recipe as a single distillation. ¹

Delfino uses a homemade copper still with three plates and cooling water, followed by a copper coil in a water tank.

Atelo Ramírez and Laura Arriaga’s pichomel blends

Atelo Ramírez and Laura Arriaga work together in Reyes Metzontla. Their two blends in Cinco Sentidos’ Colección Mixteca combine pichomel, identified as Agave marmorata, with either Azul or papalome. Their still combines galvanized steel, clay and copper. ²

Félix Macedas Jinez’s candelillo from Zapotitlán

Félix Macedas Jinez makes a candelillo for Cinco Sentidos using a local form of A. karwinskii from around Zapotitlán. His still has a galvanized steel boiling chamber, a domestic cooking pot (cazuela) above it and a copper condensing coil.

Abdias’s bullhide vessels belong to a wider Puebla practice

Abdias De La Luz Rodriguez makes Luneta’s Papalometl + Cupreata in Puebla using bullhide fermentation vessels. Elsewhere in the state, CIATEJ records cattle-hide fermentation in Tepenene, Tzicatlacoyan. ⁸

Rancho Aislados raises new agaves from seed in Caltepec

Rancho Aislados began in 2019 in Plan de San Miguel, Caltepec. Eleuterio Orea Aguilar, Félix Rubén Barragán Mendoza and Miguel Ángel Orea Aguilar founded the project using the family’s older pulque agave plantings. They collect seed, germinate it, raise seedlings and transplant the young agaves. ³

Questions about Puebla mezcal

Can Mezcal be made anywhere in Puebla?

No. The protected territory covers 118 of Puebla’s 217 municipalities following the May 2026 expansion.

Is Puebla’s papalote the same agave as Guerrero’s papalote?

No. Delfino Tobón’s papalote in Puebla is Agave potatorum; Aguerrido and Sanzekan use papalote for Agave cupreata in their Guerrero bottlings.

Continue through neighboring traditions

Compare the agaves with Guerrero’s cupreata, the equipment with Michoacán’s vinatas, or explore Oaxaca’s range of local makers and methods.

Compare agaves and production traditions in the twelve-state table.