More of The Scout’s photos from Mexico. The Scout wants you to know that most of these photos were not printed as dark as he would have liked them. So if you laptop users tilt your screen back a little, you’ll get a better idea of what he was after.
Imagine you’ve never been to California, and someone offers you a free trip. You buy a guide book and read all about San Francisco. You arrive in California and learn that you will be spending all your time in Bakersfield.
That’s what the trip to Mexico was like for me. They said to The Scout, ‘We want you to go to Guadalajara.’ But they wanted chiles and agave, so that meant Autlan de Navarro. A nice enough town, and the birthplace of Carlos Santana. But the guide book had engendered a hunger for the Orozco murals in Guadalajara. Orozco murals. Orozco murals.
As my brother has rightly pointed out, the camera always lies. Jalapenos are green–they turn red when they are off the plant and past their prime. I found this red chile on the ground and The Scout used it as a prop. When you see the commercial, you will see weathered hands picking red chiles. And you will laugh, because now you know that doesn’t happen in real life.
This is the Casta Negra distillery (destiladora) in El Mentidero (just outside of Autlan on the road to El Grullo). We found this the old fashioned way–driving around and looking. Whatta find! El Grullo is the sister city of Kent, Washington.
The reposado at rest.
Now for some of my snaps:
The Scout at work.
Agave waiting to be roasted.
The roasting oven.
We got to taste the roasted agave–a sweet, carmel-like coating covers the stringy, pulpy stuff. You scrape it off with your teeth.
While we there, a guy and his family came in. Instead of buying one of the already-filled glass bottles, they filled up four plastic containers for the guy. Must be less expensive.
Very affordable at only 70 pesos ($7 bucks) per bottle. Not available in the US–yet. They’re working on it.
Outside the destiladora. Two puppies were licking my ankles when I took this. Ah, how I suffer for art.
Sunday afternoon in El Mentidero.
