Abasolo Mexican Whisky

Abasolo Mexican Whisky is the first Mexican whisky sold in the UK and is made from 100% Mexican corn at the first purpose-built whisky distillery in Mexico.

Think of Mexican spirits – the kind you drink – and of course the first thing that springs to mind is tequila. Surprisingly, the second-most popular spirit in Mexico is not mezcal, which tends not to be mass-produced, but whisky! Most of these are imported whiskies, as Mexican whisky production – another surprise – didn’t begin until 2013.

Mexico’s First Purpose-Built Whisky Distillery

It wasn’t until 2019 that the first purpose-built whisky distillery was built, and that is the Destileria y Bodega Abasolo in Jilotepec de Abasolo, which is about 90 minutes north of Mexico City and 6 hours east of Tequila in Jalisco.

At 7,800ft (2,377m), the Abasolo distillery is one of the highest in the world, and must also be one of the most striking in its unusual design.

Jilotepec, a town with a population of about 100,000, was chosen because it’s known as the birthplace of corn in Mexico.

Making Abasolo

Abasolo is the first whisky made from 100% Ancestral Mexican Corn, known as Cacahuazintle, and the corn is treated using a 4,000 year old Mesoamerican process called nixtamalization. This involves taking the corn and seeping and cooking it in an alkaline solution before the corn is washed and hulled. This removes many impurities but among the advantages for whisky-making is that nixtamalization vastly improves the flavours and aromas of the corn.

Cacahuazintle Ancestral Mexican Corn — Cacahuazintle Corn

This is the first time this process has ever been used in whisky distilling. The resulting corn solution is then double-distilled in copper stills and finished in new toasted and used oak casks. It’s bottled at 43% ABV.

Tasting Abasolo

The Abasolo bottle is a squat, square one made of dark brown glass which almost hides the pale straw spirit inside. On the nose it has an immediate and very unusual impact. There was a distinctive aroma that I knew but couldn’t quite place. We detected vanilla, and both a sweet and a savoury scent too. There are countryside aromas, like apple, and some spiciness.

Then it hit my wife what we were smelling but not identifying: ‘Animal feed! The smell you get in a hardware or agricultural store. That has lots of corn in it.’ She’s an Iowa girl so knows about these things. It then struck me too, though for me it was bird seed, the lovely savoury smell I get when I cut open a new bag of bird seed. That, too, usually has plenty of corn in it. It’s an unusual aroma to assign to a whisky and it sounds odd but it’s really delightful and different.

On the palate my wife’s first comment was ‘syrupy’. It is nice and oily, coating the mouth. There was still a vanilla sweetness and that corn taste, along with a peppery spiciness. It doesn’t have the depth and complexity of a Scottish single malt, but is still a terrific sip.

The website suggests several cocktails you can make with Abasolo, including one that’s equal parts whisky, ginger beer and soda water. We were out of ginger beer so I tried it instead with just ginger ale, no soda water, and it produced a very enjoyable, light and refreshing whisky cocktail.