LITMIR.BIZ

      THE ROAD CONTINUED all the way up to the remote mountain village of Benito Juárez, named after the beloved Zapotec president who governed Mexico for five terms, between 1858 and 1872. But we would be traveling on it only as far as Teotitlán del Valle, which came into view once we topped a foothill. The community is a cluster of one- and two-story structures of concrete, brick, and stone, with brightly colored metal doors leading into them. Around five thousand people live there. Founded around 1465, the village was originally named Xaquija (Celestial Constellation) in Zapoteco. A white church, Preciosa Sangre de Cristo, rises from the center. It is overshadowed by a sacred butte-shaped peak, called Cerro Gie Betts (stone brother) in the local dialect.

      We passed several weaving workshops displaying tapetes on their outside walls. Many of the rugs had geometric patterns that were inspired by the ancient reliefs carved into the stones of a local Zapotec temple. In the sixteenth century, as part of their imposition of Roman Catholicism, the Spanish tore the indigenous structure down to its foundations and began incorporating its pieces into the church. Construction began in 1581 and was finally completed in 1758.

      Ron drove us past the weed-covered temple ruins and parked his truck near a large courtyard, which we walked across to the whitewashed church. There he showed me a beautifully carved pre-Columbian stone motif that had been laid bare amid the plaster. “Check that out!” Ron said, pointing. The Spanish conquerors, he said, “may have forced them to adopt a new religion, but they still haven’t forgotten the old one.” The ancient glyph was a silent reminder of a complex culture that had been conquered by another and had melded with it, its evolution into something new still going on.

      Ron had invited me to stay with him in the village, where he kept a sparse apartment in a nondescript building near the center. He showed me one of his recent artworks, which consisted of a book bolted to a colorful piece of scrap metal from a canning company. The book’s cover was a black-and-white photo of María Sabina, the Mazatec curandera (medicine woman) who became famous in the 1960s for her ceremonial use of Psilocybe “magic” mushrooms—and for the subsequent visits she received from rock stars of the era. The region continues to attract seekers looking for answers via mind-altering fungi, plants, and other substances. To this day, Sabina remains a hippie icon, her image depicted on posters and T-shirts all over Oaxaca.

      He had decorated an altar with vases of fresh flowers, pictures of saints, and offerings of mezcal, mostly contained in used plastic water bottles. He picked up one that had TOBALÁ and a date written on it with a black marker. He poured us each a taste into two clay cups that, I assumed, were traditional Oaxacan. They turned out to have been of his own invention: stamped with his company’s name, they were used for marketing and promotion. Sipping mezcal from a neutral-tasting clay vessel, he explained, delivered a more “honest” flavor experience than drinking it from a glass.

      “Wait until you taste this,” he said. “It’s going to blow your mind!”

      I had never tried tobalá before, and it was smooth and delicate, like a tear from a mermaid’s eye—or so I imagined in my first, cautious usage of booze jargon. I soon felt deeply relaxed and pleasantly tired. As crickets sang and rain began drizzling outside the moonlit windows, Ron offered me an air mattress and a colorfully striped serape blanket. I drifted into deep slumber.

      My bed having completely deflated, I awoke, shivering, on the hard, cold floor. My first thought was to warm up with another nip from the altar, but Ron, who was already up and about, handed me a ceramic bowl of strong black coffee instead. For my Mountainfreak assignment, Ron had offered to take me to visit the producers he bought mezcal from in Santo Domingo Albarradas. That was several hours away, and I was eager to see where that first artisanal agave spirit I had tasted in Santa Fe was from—and to meet the people who had made it.