Creating An American Agave Spirit With Mean Mule

Cocktails Distilled

When you think of agave spirits, your mind naturally goes to places like Lesko and its surrounding areas in Mexico.
But what if, instead, it went a little further north of the border? That is what mean mule distilling wants your mind to do when you think of the agave spirits that they are producing in Kansas City, Missouri, located slap bang in the Heart of America.
Mean Mule was born of generations of distilling tradition, but this time all above board and legal and with a whole new ingredient. But what does it mean to be an American agave spirit?
To find out more, we talked to Jeff Evans about moonshine and agave gin.

Chapter

1. Creating An American Agave Spirit With Mean Mule (00:00:00)

2. I suppose we'd better start with the origins of the name and how one mean mule kind of changed the fate of your family. (00:01:30)

3. How did you come up with the idea of using Agave? (00:03:29)

4. Do you have a bartending or spirits background? (00:04:56)

5. How do you go about this? Are you importing agave from Mexico? (00:06:06)

6. What machines did you build for the distillery? (00:10:52)

7. So when you brand yourself as an agave spirit, do they connect it with Tequila? (00:13:55)

8. Not having the restrictions of Mexican distillers, I imagine gives you freedom to experiment? (00:15:31)

9. Talk to us about the Agave Gin? (00:18:16)

10. What is the process? Do you let the botanicals infuse? (00:20:12)

11. What is teh dominant flavour? Juniper or Agave? (00:21:37)

12. How much experimentation did you need to do to get it right? (00:24:03)

13. How should people use it? (00:25:32)

14. What has the reaction been? (00:26:51)

15. How much education for consumers is needed? (00:27:58)

16. Talk to us about teh heritage expression (00:29:30)

17. What is in the futiure for the distillery? (00:31:48)

18. And what about new liquids? (00:35:39)

19. Where is it available? (00:37:12)