Press

Since 2012, Max Rosenstock, Niki Nakazawa, and Yuskei Murayama have worked with over a dozen family producers from the hills of Miahuatlán, Oaxaca and the 110-person village of Logoche to commercialize single-batch agave spirits via their brand NETA. The area’s complex terroir and deep-rooted traditional practices have made it one of the best regions in Mexico for producing terruño (terroir)-driven spirits.

Each of the three co-founders brings a different skill set and perspective to their negociant business. Rosenstock’s deep knowledge of the spirit and its sociocultural and agricultural context helped ingrain them in the community. Nakazawa arrived with over a decade spent living and working in Mexico City in the arts, natural wine, and restaurant world, while Yuskei’s experience in founding, scaling, and running a multinational import and distribution company brought “structure and strategy” to the company. “As is so often the case, many a shared copita initially brought the three of us together,” the trio says in a combined email to VinePair.

Notably absent on the bottles of NETA’s releases is the word “mezcal,” though each certainly qualifies from an aromatic, flavor, and production standpoint. The reason for the omission: The term mezcal is a protected Denomination of Origin (DOM), governed by often-changing and arguably restrictive production criteria. “Our use of the term ‘agave spirits’ is a community decision that enabled producers to focus on preserving the family recipes and practices that grew from their specific historical context, as opposed to navigating a set of externally imposed criteria,” the brand states.

NETA’s efforts have resulted in a win-win for spirits fans and small-scale Mexican distillers. A final, refreshing, aspect of the brand is NETA’s physical presence in Mexico. “Being here in Oaxaca is everything,” the trio says. “NETA is distilled from place and community. There is no substitute [for] being here.”

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Agave Spirits bring people together in a way not too many other spirits can. From harvesting, to producing, and consuming, every facet is laced with cultivating relationships. Mezcal and other agave spirits are that farm-to-table restaurant where you eat at a communal setting, smiling next to strangers as you share stories, while the chef is continuously serving up dishes and discussing the ingredients with you. Fathers pass down traditions and techniques, mezcaleros sell to friends and neighbors, and if there’s ever a celebration, you can bet your bottom dollar that the good stuff is getting brought out; it’s part of the romance, the mystique, and if you’ll forgive the pun, the spirit of the plant itself. I know from my personal experience visiting Oaxaca that the relationships formed around mezcal transcend language and cultural barriers. While I did take Spanish in high school, ‘rusty’ would be a generous term for my grasp of it now. I was invited to a mezcalero’s birthday party and by the end, felt as welcomed and loved as any member of the family or long-time friend—we were all able to bond around the language of mezcal.

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“I'm just standing in an alleyway right now,” says Dimayuga, laughing, over a crackling call from Mexico City. She’s on a last-minute research excursion with the Spanish chef Peter Sanchez-Iglesias — his Bristol restaurants Casamia and Paco Tapas have earned Michelin stars — whom she brought on to launch a rooftop restaurant at The Standard’s King’s Cross outpost in London. The pair is on an intimate tour guided by local mezcal expert Niki Nakazawa, the similarly fanciful foodie with an art and publishing background who cofounded Neta, a mezcal brand dedicated to supporting small producers. “The restaurant is going to be Spanish, but also inspired by Mexican cuisine,” she explains. “In my last few years at Mission Chinese, I was really interested in working collaboratively with a lot of different types of creatives: scientists, activists, farmers. Once I left, I just continued to do a lot of weird projects.”

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Sanchez-Iglesias and Green—who will be at the helm of the rooftop restaurant at The Standard, London, which opens this spring in King’s Cross—have traveled to Mexico City from Bristol, where they work at Sanchez-Iglesias’s two restaurants Casamia and Paco Tapas, which have a Michelin Star apiece. Angela Dimayuga, food and culture director of The Standard and formerly executive chef at Mission Chinese, joined the duo from New York for the research trip, which was guided by Niki Nakazawa, an expert in Mexican cuisine who among many things, has worked as a caterer; producer for the Acid episode of the Netflix series Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat; and co-founder of a new mezcal called Neta.

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