Black Snake Distillery

In 2016 one of our daughters returned from a trip to Mexico keen to share her experience regarding Mezcal. She thought that our home climate was suitable for the growth of agave and the production of spirits from those plants. The first part was certainly true as a species of agave was growing wild in our area.
It had probably been imported for use as a decorative plant but had escaped in the last 100 years or so. This turned out to be Agave americana, one of the 40 or so species used in Mexico to produce Mezcal. Thus began the journey to establish a sustainable craft distillery. The guiding principles were to have a minimal environmental impact while producing a quality product.
With this in mind we have modified a 200-litre stainless steel food grade drum (with some help from a local engineering firm) to provide the basis of the still. To power the still we obtained 5kw (nominal) of second-hand solar panels and mounted them on a frame near the distillery. These panels power the 4.5kw of electric elements used for heating as well as any other equipment when not distilling.
After testing and tinkering for some time Black Snake Distillery produced Pure Gin. This was always intended to be an important but secondary line to the agave spirit. Finally, Black Snake Distillery is producing the handcrafted agave spirit as was originally intended. This is known as ASp and has been made using Mexican production as a guide. The majority of ASp is Joven but there will also be Reposado and Anejo lines available in the future. See the products pages for more information.

Author: Dirk Jahn