Oddly enough, I've just watched Moonshiners on Discovery. One went to Mexico to see how tequila and mezcal are made. I'd assumed agave was the spikey leaves, and learned that under those is a big ball of sugary goodness that's used to make the booze.
I also learned that agave's one of those 'miracle' plants with a lot of uses. One distillery was built from mud bricks reinforced with agave fibres, which was rather neat. Plus fibres can be turned into cloth, rope, the thorns used as needles and the food uses. Some years ago, I tried agave syrup as a substitute for maple, and it was good. Maple syrup tastes nasty to me (sorry Canada), but agave had a nice flavour.
Downside seems to be agave grows slowly, so out competed by plants like sugar cane & beets. But for booze, the sap's pre-vintage with the plants taking 6-20+ years to mature, which presumably means more time to develop flavours.
So quite fascinating. Rest of the show is a bit strange as it's pseudo-reality. Fun to see how booze is made, but the show fakes the illegality. The stars are presumably licensed distillers because they're not in jail.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
