Contemporary Authors

• Divided Spirits: Tequila, Mezcal, and the Politics of Production University of California Press (Oakland, CA), 2015

1. Divided spirits : tequila, mezcal, and the politics of production LCCN 2015006369 Type of material Book Personal name Bowen, Sarah, 1978- author. Main title Divided spirits : tequila, mezcal, and the politics of production / Sarah Bowen. Published/Produced Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2015] ©2015 Description xvi, 256 pages ; 24 cm. ISBN 9780520281042 (cloth : alk. paper) 0520281047 (cloth : alk. paper) 9780520281059 (pbk. : alk. paper) 0520281055 (pbk. : alk. paper) CALL NUMBER HD9393.6.A2 B69 2015 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms

• LOC Authorities -

  LC control no.: no2015022464

  Descriptive conventions:
  rda

  Personal name heading:
  Bowen, Sarah, 1978-

  Birth date: 19780212

  Field of activity: Sociology

  Affiliation: North Carolina State University

  Found in: Bowen, Sarah. Divided spirits, 2015: ECIP title page (Sarah
  Bowen) data view (Bowen, Sarah; birth date February 12,
  1978)
  Sarah Bowen website, Feb. 17, 2015: home page (associate
  professor of sociology at North Carolina State
  University)

  Associated language:
  eng

  ================================================================================

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• Sarah Bowen Home Page - http://www.sarahkbowen.com/

  Picture
  I received my Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2008. I am an Associate Professor of Sociology at North Carolina State University, where I classes and conduct research related to health, food, inequality, and development.

  I have conducted extensive research on denominations of origin in Mexico, France, and the United States, and I am author of Divided Spirits: Tequila, Mezcal, and the Politics of Production (University of California Press, October 2015). My current research focuses on food access and food insecurity in North Carolina. I am director of Voices into Action: The Families, Food, and Health Project, a longitudinal (2011-2016) research and participatory outreach project on the factors that influence families’ beliefs, decisions, and practices related to food.

  CV: http://www.sarahkbowen.com/uploads/4/1/0/3/41034695/bowen_cv_september_2015.pdf

• Department of Sociology and Anthropology, North Carolina State University Web site - https://socant.chass.ncsu.edu/faculty_staff/skbowen

  QUOTED: "During my time in Autlán, I began contemplating the profound effects that the tequila industry was having on the region, but at this point, I had never even visited the town of Tequila, which is, not surprisingly, where tequila gets its name and the center of the industry."
  "By the time I returned to Jalisco two years later, in 2006, to begin the research that my book is based on, I had decided that what I really wanted to understand was how the institutions that regulate the tequila industry—such as the quality standards and the denomination of origin—affect all of the people and communities involved with making and selling tequila and growing agave."
  "in general, the tequila industry is dominated by a handful of huge companies, most of which have shifted to an industrial model of production and are owned by multinational liquor companies. To me, what is happening with mezcal is actually more interesting."
  "Consumers in the United States—and around the world—are now very interested in craft spirits and cocktails, and mezcal has suddenly become very trendy, because it is still possible to find mezcal made by small producers who are using methods that have developed over time in particular communities and that really haven’t changed very much in several hundred years."

  Sarah Bowen
  Picture of Sarah Bowen
  Associate Professor

  Website: http://www.sarahkbowen.com/
  Vita: download vita

  Email: sarah_bowen@ncsu.edu
  Phone: 919-515-0452
  Office: 1911 Bldg 362
  Locate on Campus Map

  Teaching and Research Interests

  Sociology of Food
  Health and Inequality
  Political Economy/Globalization
  Research Methods

  Projects

  PI and Director, Voices into Action: The Families, Food, and Health Project. See http://voicesintoaction.org.
  Funded Research

  Hardison-Moody, Annie (PI), Lindsey Haynes-Maslow (co-PI), J. Dara Bloom, Lorelei Jones, Carolyn Dunn, Sarah Bowen, Jason Bocarro, Michael Kanters, Aaron Hipp, Michael Edwards, Myron Floyd, and Cintia Aguilar. 2016-2018. “A Multi-Level Approach to Prevent Obesity: Extension and Engagement in Four North Carolina Counties.” Center for Disease Control, $1,582,325.

  )Bowen, Sarah (PI), Richelle Winkler (co-PI), J. Dara Bloom, and Lillian O'Connell. 2014-2015. "Contextualizing Family Food Decisions: The Role of Household Characteristics, Neighborhood Deprivation, and the Local Food Environment." USDA ERS, $39,848.

  Bowen, Sarah (PI), Sinikka Elliott (co-PI), Annie Hardison-Moody (co-PI), Lorelei Jones, Susan Jakes, and J. Dara Bloom. 2011-2016. "Community-Based Approach to Reducing Childhood Obesity in Low-Income Populations: Research to Action." USDA NIFA, AFRI, $3,026,299.
  Publications
  Books:
  (* = equally authored)

  Bowen, Sarah. 2015. Divided Spirits: Tequila, Mezcal, and the Politics of Production. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  Bowen, Sarah*, Joslyn Brenton*, and Sinikka Elliott.* The Joy of Cooking?: Feeding the Family in Unequal Times. Book manuscript under contract with Oxford University Press.

  Selected journal articles:

  MacNell, Lillian, Sarah Bowen, Sinikka Elliot, and Annie Hardison-Moody. 2017 (forthcoming). "Interactions Between Urban Food Desert Residents and their Food Environments: Bringing the Individual Back In." Forthcoming, Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition.
  Elliott, Sinikka, Josephine Ngo McKelvy, and Sarah Bowen. 2017 (forthcoming). “Marking Time in Ethnography: Uncovering Temporal Dispositions.” Ethnography. Available online at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1466138116655360.
  Bowen, Elizabeth, Sarah Bowen, and Anamika Barman-Adhikari. 2016. “Prevalence and Covariates of Food Insecurity among Residents of Single Room Occupancy Housing in Chicago.” Public Health Nutrition 19(6): 1122-1130.
  Jakes, Susan, Annie Hardison-Moody, Sarah Bowen, and John Blevins. 2015. “Engaging Community Change: The Critical Role of Values in Asset Mapping.” Community Development 46(4): 392-406.
  Gaytan*, Marie Sarita, and Sarah Bowen*. 2014. “Naturalizing Neoliberalism and the De-Mexicanization of the Tequila Industry.” Environment and Planning A 47: 267-28
  Bowen*, Sarah, Sinikka Elliott*, and Joslyn Brenton*. 2014. "The Joy of Cooking?." Contexts 13(3): 20-25.
  Bowen*, Sarah, and Marie Sarita Gaytan*. 2012. "The Paradox of Protection: National Identity, Global Commodity Chains, and the Tequila Industry." Social Problems 59(1): 70-93.
  Bowen, Sarah. “The Importance of Place: Re-Territorializing Embeddedness.” Sociologia Ruralis 51(4): 325-348.
  Bowen, Sarah. 2010. “Embedding Local Places in Global Spaces: Geographical Indications as a Territorial Development Strategy.” Rural Sociology 75(2): 209-243.
  Bowen, Sarah, and Ana Valenzuela Zapata. 2009. “Geographical Indications, Terroir, and Socioeconomic and Ecological Sustainability: The Case of Tequila.” Journal of Rural Studies 25(1): 108-119.

  Education

  Ph.D. in Sociology from University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2008
  M.S. in Rural Sociology from University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2004
  B.S. in Agricultural and Biological Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University, 2000

  Divided Spirits

  By Sarah Bowen, author of Divided Spirits: Tequila, Mezcal, and the Politics of Production

  This guest post is published in advance of the American Sociological Association conference in Chicago. Check back every day for new posts through the end of the conference on Tuesday, August 25th.

  What are the limitations of alternative markets in ensuring fair, sustainable food?

  As educated and socially conscious consumers, we want to believe that our purchasing decisions—whether that means buying fair trade coffee, local produce, or traditional mezcals—can make a difference. I think that maybe they can. But it’s also true that in a system based on “voting with your dollar,” people with more dollars have more votes.

  On the whole, I believe that the growth of the market for artisanal mezcals and tequilas has shifted the conversation about protecting Mexico’s spirits in productive ways. But that’s not enough. In a market-based system, the right to define what constitutes “tequila” and “mezcal” extends as much from market power as it does from a sense of tradition or justice. And the interests of wealthy consumers, no matter how committed they are, are not always going to line up with what’s best for producers, farmers, or workers.

  There is a need to move beyond market-based models in order to create more democratic, participatory, and inclusive ways of protecting, valuing, and preserving local foods and drinks and the people who make them. Lasting change is unlikely without the involvement of the state and a sustained commitment to supporting rural development and small-scale agriculture and to reducing inequality in rural communities.

  9780520281059What reforms do you believe are most necessary to protect local producers of tequila and mezcal?

  The denominations of origin (DOs, place-based labels that tie production of foods or drinks to particular regions, like Champagne) and quality standards that regulate tequila and mezcal are structured in ways that allow for, and even encourage, industrialization and standardization. The DOs and standards manage to be both too open and too restrictive. Because they are so general, they fail to protect the linkages between specific places, the types of agave that grow there, and the production practices that developed there over time. The regulatory institutions do not define any practices as central to the identities of tequila or mezcal, and so industrial producers are scaling up, adopting innovations that are more efficient but that move tequila and mezcal further from their historical roots and make it more difficult for small producers to compete. They are also too restrictive, in that they set parameters that are almost impossible for producers using traditional methods to meet, and in doing so, further encourage industrialization.

  My primary recommendation is that these regulatory institutions need to allow small producers (as well as farmers and workers) collectively define the practices and qualities that are important to them. The vast majority of regulatory decisions that have been made over the last seventy years have been pushed by large distilleries (and the multinational liquor companies that increasingly own them), with a goal of maximizing efficiency and accessing foreign markets. It’s time to hear from small producers and make the process of defining the quality of tequila and mezcal more democratic. In addition, the regulatory institutions need to take more seriously the issue of the quality and sustainability of agave, the main ingredient in tequila and mezcal and one of the things that makes these spirits so unique.

  Did you encounter any unique challenges while conducting research and interviews? Is there anything on the subject that you would be interested in studying further?

  One afternoon, I was conducting interviews with agave farmers in a tiny town in Jalisco. I had to drive up a very steep, windy road to get to this town. I did the two interviews that I had come there to do, and then it started to pour. This was during the rainy season, when it rains almost every afternoon, but this was a particularly heavy rainfall, and it was also getting dark. The road was slick, and I began to worry whether I would be able to drive back down the hill. I knocked on the door of the nearest house, and these two older ladies, who must have been in their eighties, invited me in. They told me I could stay the night with them if I needed to. I ended up waiting out the storm with them, but then decided I could make the drive home. But that story always reminds me of the incredible generosity and kindness of the people I met doing my fieldwork.

  As far as future work, I would like to look more at the role and living conditions of jimadores—the workers who harvest the agave—in the tequila industry. Jimadores have a special symbolic significance and are often depicted on tequila labels and featured in distillery. Yet the romantic images of jimadores that we see in tequila ads conceal the health problems and chronic poverty from which they suffer. I talked to some jimadores while doing research for my book, but I hope to do a larger study, to look at how working conditions and health problems of the jimadores vary between regions and between types of companies and contracts.

  Tequila, Mezcal and Social Science: Q&A With Sarah Bowen

  September 15, 2015 | Matt Shipman

  Sarah Bowen knows a lot about tequila and mezcal. Her new book, Divided Spirits: Tequila, Mezcal, and the Politics of Production, explores the complex web of relationships – from farmers to bartenders – involved in transforming agave plants grown in Mexico into high-end spirits and cocktails consumed around the world. It’s an industry that has been the subject of considerable political debate in Mexico and still grapples with significant social challenges.

  We recently had the opportunity to pick Bowen’s brain about tequila, mezcal, and Bowen’s work as a sociology researcher at NC State University.

  The Abstract: You’re a sociologist who studies the intersection of food, drink, and society. How do you get into something like that? Did you start out fascinated by food? Or did you become interested in food after becoming fascinated by sociology?

  Sarah Bowen: I actually started out more interested in agriculture, and I got my undergraduate degree in agricultural engineering. I spent a few years helping design conservation projects for dairy farmers, and then decided I wanted to understand the social processes that affect farmers’ decisions. So I went to graduate school for sociology, initially thinking I would study soil conservation, and I became fascinated by the tequila industry – how could you not?

  TA: You published your first paper on agave farming in 2007, and you’re still doing work in that area. What drew you to studying tequila and mezcal?

  Bowen: My first trip to Jalisco, where most tequila is produced, was actually back in 2004. I was in graduate school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and they had an exchange program with the University of Guadalajara’s campus in Autlán, a small city in southern Jalisco. The tequila industry was suffering from a severe shortage of agave. The industry has historically had a hard time managing the supply and demand of agave, in part because blue agave takes 6-8 years to mature after being planted. In response to the shortage that was going on at that time, tequila companies had moved into southern Jalisco and started renting land from small farmers and planting it with agave.
  A small distillery. Photo credit: Sarah Bowen.
  A small distillery. Photo credit: Sarah Bowen.

  Researchers at the University of Guadalajara were looking for a research assistant to interview farmers in the region and see what factors were motivating their decisions to rent out their land, and in some cases, to plant their own agave. The terms of the contracts were often unfavorable to the farmers, and they were worried about the condition their land would be in when the tequila companies were done with it. A smaller group of farmers had saved up enough money to grow their own agave, and hoped that this would be a profitable investment. But even then it was fairly clear to me that this wasn’t likely to be a sustainable strategy, for the region or the farmers; the agave supply was starting to recover, and prices had begun falling.

  During my time in Autlán, I began contemplating the profound effects that the tequila industry was having on the region, but at this point, I had never even visited the town of Tequila, which is, not surprisingly, where tequila gets its name and the center of the industry. By the time I returned to Jalisco two years later, in 2006, to begin the research that my book is based on, I had decided that what I really wanted to understand was how the institutions that regulate the tequila industry—such as the quality standards and the denomination of origin—affect all of the people and communities involved with making and selling tequila and growing agave.

  TA: Was there anything in particular that surprised you about the tequila industry once you started delving into it?

  Bowen: Tequila is considered a success story by many people. Tequila is the first product outside of Europe to be protected by a denomination of origin, or DO. DOs are labels, established by national governments in the places where they are produced, that give particular places the right to produce a food or drink, and also set rules for how that food or drink must be produced.

  The oldest and most famous DOs are from Europe: Champagne, Roquefort, Rioja, Parmigiano-Reggiano. But tequila has been protected since 1974. Moreover, the market for tequila has experienced incredible growth in the last two decades, tripling between 1995 and 2008. So tequila stands as a model for producers and government officials in many developing countries who are interested in protecting their own regional products and hoping to use them to promote local development.

  But the benefits associated with the protection of the DO and the growth of the industry have not trickled down to the farmers, workers, or communities where tequila is made. Even though the market for ultra-premium tequila is the fastest growing segment, the price that farmers are paid for their agave has often been below the costs of production, and the tequila companies increasingly grow their own agave, cutting the farmers out altogether. The agricultural workers are even worse off, and some have started migrating to the United States, because they can’t find enough work and don’t get paid enough to make a living.

  TA: I know that it’s a complex business, involving agriculture, production, marketing, and so on, but what do you think are the biggest challenges facing the tequila and mezcal industries as a whole? And what’s the difference between tequila and mezcal anyway?

  Bowen: To some degree, the tequila industry has already chosen its path. There are some really interesting tequila companies, distilleries that are using more traditional methods or trying to create a strong connection between the place where the agave is grown and the taste of the tequila, to be sure. But in general, the tequila industry is dominated by a handful of huge companies, most of which have shifted to an industrial model of production and are owned by multinational liquor companies. To me, what is happening with mezcal is actually more interesting.
  A hillside of agave. Photo credit: Sarah Bowen.
  A hillside of agave. Photo credit: Sarah Bowen.

  The market for mezcal, especially in the United States, is still just a fraction of the market for tequila. But the mezcal industry, and especially the market for artisanal and traditional mezcals, is experiencing an incredible boom right now.

  Consumers in the United States—and around the world—are now very interested in craft spirits and cocktails, and mezcal has suddenly become very trendy, because it is still possible to find mezcal made by small producers who are using methods that have developed over time in particular communities and that really haven’t changed very much in several hundred years.

  In some places, mezcal producers still chop their agave by hand, with wooden mallets. They often don’t add anything to speed up fermentation, and they distill the fermented juices in wood-burning clay or copper pot stills. Mezcal is still made with many different varieties of agave.

  To me, what is fascinating about mezcal is that it still retains this deep connection to place: the type of agave and the production practices still vary between regions and even from town to town. But the industry is at a crossroads in terms of making decisions about how to regulate and protect mezcal. One group wants to follow the path of the tequila industry, building bigger distilleries that use increasingly industrial methods, to mass-produce mezcal. And, so far, the institutions that regulate mezcal look very similar to those that regulate tequila.

  But there is another group of people within the mezcal industry that is advocating an alternative path, one that has the potential to protect the small producers, traditional practices, and diverse varieties of agave that make mezcal so unique. The biggest challenges the mezcal industry faces going forward are about sustainability, for producers and for the environment. They need to figure out how to establish rules that actually work for small producers, how to guarantee that producers and workers are getting a fair price; and how to ensure that the agave is being cultivated and managed sustainably.

  TA: You’ve written numerous papers on the subject of agave, tequila and mezcal – what made you decide to write a book about it?

  Bowen: I have been thinking about tequila and mezcal for many years, but in an article, you really only have space to talk about one issue at a time. The book gave me the chance to immerse myself in the long history of mezcal and tequila. In particular, I wanted to look at the politics that underlie these industries: the way they have evolved, the interests that are tied to particular decisions, and the effects these decisions have had on mezcal and tequila and the people that make them. Writing a book gave me the chance to tell more of the story, and to show how many of the conflicts and issues that people are talking about today—for example, the industrialization of tequila production, the increasingly global orientation of the industry, and the cycles of surplus and shortage of agave—actually have very long historical roots.

  TA: What are you hoping to accomplish with the book? What do you want readers to take away from it?

  Bowen: My book is aimed primarily at a U.S. audience. U.S. consumers, as well as U.S. retailers and bartenders, have had a big influence on the tequila and mezcal industries. Tequila producers began exporting tequila to the United States back in the 19th century, and today, the United States is by far the biggest importer of tequila. And there has been a huge increase in the number of artisanal and traditional mezcals available in the United States just in the last few years.

  Many of the decisions that have been made about how to regulate tequila and mezcal have been made at least in part with the U.S. market in mind. Some of these have been bad, in my opinion—for example, the decision to allow the production of flavored tequilas, like mango tequila or cinnamon tequila—and some have been good. U.S. consumers and bartenders are increasingly knowledgeable about how their mezcals and tequila are being made, and I think this has the potential to positively impact the industry. And especially in the case of mezcal, I think it is already having a positive impact. For example, recently, there has been a proposal to legally differentiate artisanal mezcal from industrially-produced mezcal, which is something that small mezcal producers have been talking about for years but has gained traction in part because of the demand from the United States.

  At the same time, I think that the U.S. influence is potentially dangerous, because the interests of American consumers are not, by definition, always going to line up with the interests of small mezcal producers, farmers, and workers. With this book, I want to push concerned American consumers and bartenders to think more about what they are buying and drinking and ask more questions about how their mezcal and tequila are being produced—and perhaps most importantly, about how the small producers, farmers, and workers are being paid. But I also want to emphasize that the market isn’t going to solve all of the problems in these industries—there also need to be changes in the laws that regulate production of mezcal and tequila and in the policies that affect people and communities in Mexico more generally.

  TA: You’ve also done work on everything from Comté cheese to the family dinner. Are there any themes that you think are consistent throughout your research?

  Bowen: As a sociologist, I am concerned with inequality, whether in the tequila industry (in terms of how much of the price of a bottle of tequila trickles down to the workers and farmers) or when talking about the issues that make it difficult for low-income mothers to feed their children healthy dinners. Another consistent theme in my research is my belief that addressing these inequalities cannot just take place through the market (whether that means encouraging consumers to buy sustainably-produced tequila or encouraging supermarkets to move into food deserts), although market- and consumer-driven changes are important. We need broader policy changes that are going to have to come from the state.

  TA: You lead a USDA-funded research initiative, Voices Into Action, that focuses on food access, community partnerships, and health in low-income communities. Has that affected the way you view the relationship between food and society?

  Bowen: While my earlier work mostly focuses the production of tequila and mezcal, my work with Voices into Action focuses more on the consumption side: how food decisions and health outcomes are linked to factors such as access to transportation and affordable childcare, work schedules and wages, and the food stores that are available in people’s neighborhoods. In the future, I want to continue looking how we produce food, how we consume it, and how those two things are interlinked.

  TA: Last question: any suggestions for folks who don’t know much about agave spirits, but who want to learn how to appreciate the good stuff?

  Bowen: I think that the most important thing is to make sure that you are buying 100% agave tequila and mezcal. It should say “100% agave” on the label. For tequila, I encourage people to try blancos, which by definition cannot be aged more than two months. The aged tequilas (reposados and añejos) have a certain cachet, but the agave flavor is more pronounced in a good blanco. For mezcal, try to find mezcals made with different varieties of agave. If you taste a few alongside each other, you can really taste the difference. It is also interesting to try mezcals made by different producers, but with the same variety of agave.

• Mezcalistas - http://mezcalistas.com/sarah-bowen-interview/

  QUOTED: "
  Try to be educated about how mezcal is produced. It’s hard to do when you’re here in the US. Try to know something about how producers and farmers are being paid. This can be difficult, because not all companies want to be transparent about this. But we should support companies that are paying the workers and producers well, not just because their mezcal or their tequila tastes good. The most important thing is to start talking about the workers and producers."
  "Part of the issue is that getting into the American market is hard to do, so Mexican producers frequently have to work with someone else to get access to the market. My main point of hope is that so much has changed in past 10 years. Just the fact that consumers are talking about all these things makes me really hopeful."
  "When I started this research, no one was talking about terroir, there was hardly any artisanal mezcal available in the US, and no one was talking about environmental practices and sustainability. Now that’s what we talk about. I think that talking about workers and producers is the final step."

  Sarah Bowen interview
  by Max Garrone on May 18, 2015
  Sarah Bowen

  Sarah Bowen

  Sarah Bowen is an Associate Professor of Sociology at North Carolina State University who has long studied the impact of the tequila and mezcal industries on Mexico. Most recently she wrote a great portrait of the battles over how to define mezcal in the winter issue of Gastronomica. Those debates consumed the mezcal world in 2011 and 2012, ultimately culminating in the defeat of NOM 186 and the Mexican government’s proposal to copyright the term “agave.”

  It’s well worth reading and is something of a preface to her upcoming book, “Divided Spirits: Tequila, Mezcal, and the Politics of Production,” due out this September from the University of California Press. We are really looking forward to that and will definitely post our notes on it as soon as it’s available.

  Here’s an excerpt from the official description of the book:

  This book tells the stories of tequila and mezcal, two of Mexico’s most iconic products, to investigate the politics of protecting local products in a global market. As people yearn to connect with the people and places that produce their food, the concept of terroir—the taste of place—has become increasingly salient.

  …

  The growing global demand for tequila and mezcal has led to fame and fortune for a handful of people, while excluding and marginalizing many others. Thess cases analyzed in this book illustrate the limitations of relying on alternative markets to protect food cultures and rural livelihoods.

  Sarah has published widely in the academic world about the history and contemporary issues with how tequila and mezcal are managing their Denominacion de Origen. It’s a huge story in Mexico and part of an even bigger one as producers of traditional goods as diverse as cheese and spirits struggle to retain control over their intellectual and cultural property in an increasingly globalized marketplace.

  Mezcal is currently embroiled in exactly this discussion about the proposed NOM 070 and Sarah delves into this debate that apparently pits authentic back country distillers against industrialists. But that romanticized portrait is only part of the story, significant issues are seldom discussed like who’s really getting paid? Is that romantic story even true? Is it sustainable? Is the agave listed on the bottle even in the mezcal? And, perhaps most important she raises the big question of whether the industry has to stay static like a fly in amber or whether it can become a dynamic force.

  We talked recently to delve into these questions, how she sees the mezcal industry developing in the face of NOM 070, and what role North American consumers play in the entire debate.

  How did you get started studying the world of mezcal?

  I have been looking at this topic since 2002. I started out looking at the shift to agave cultivation in southern Jalisco during the agave shortage in the early 2000s. I did my dissertation on the Denominación de Origen for tequila, and I have been studying mezcal for about six years. In all this time that I’ve been looking at the history of regulation of tequila and mezcal, it seems like it’s been going in one direction. Almost all of the changes made to the regulations have been expanding the markets for tequila and mezcal and increasing exports. It’s not at all in the direction of helping small farmers and producers. In the last few years, with the failure of NOM 186 and now the proposed revisions to the norm for mezcal, it feels like we are seeing a major shift in the evaluation of the tequila and mezcal industries..

  Why now? Who’s behind it?

  My article in Gastronomica is about the campaign against NOM 186 and the proposal to copyright the word “agave.” American bartenders, retailers, and consumers played a big role. In my interviews, people that had been organizing against the campaign told me that no one was really paying attention until realized that boycotts by American consumers were possible. That played an important role. The case of NOM 186 offers a lot of hope, because there’s this movement coming out of the US and Mexico, of people who care about artisanal mezcal and are aligning themselves with small producers. This offers small producers an opportunity that, unfortunately, they wouldn’t have on their own. As Americans that care, we also have to be careful because our interests don’t necessarily align with those of the small mezcal producers. We really need to think about our role.

  How would you encourage American consumers to think about this and act?

  Try to be educated about how mezcal is produced. It’s hard to do when you’re here in the US. Try to know something about how producers and farmers are being paid. This can be difficult, because not all companies want to be transparent about this. But we should support companies that are paying the workers and producers well, not just because their mezcal or their tequila tastes good. The most important thing is to start talking about the workers and producers.

  Can you offer any specific guidance to consumers? Are there any brands they should follow, any specific stories?

  There are some interesting brands like Mezcal Sanzekan, which is owned by a cooperative of mezcal producers, or Real Minero, which is Mexican-owned. But then there are other models too, like companies that are part Mexican, part American, or Americans that are working with small producers in respectful and fair ways.

  Part of the issue is that getting into the American market is hard to do, so Mexican producers frequently have to work with someone else to get access to the market. My main point of hope is that so much has changed in past 10 years. Just the fact that consumers are talking about all these things makes me really hopeful. When I started this research, no one was talking about terroir, there was hardly any artisanal mezcal available in the US, and no one was talking about environmental practices and sustainability. Now that’s what we talk about. I think that talking about workers and producers is the final step. There isn’t a hard and fast rule; it is hard to figure it out. But I am heartened by the fact that people are talking about mezcal in a more thoughtful way than they were even 5-10 years ago.

  What do you think of the proposed Norma?

  I was shocked by the proposal, because it is just a radical break from the previous norma for mezcal and the tequila norm. But the problem is that we have no idea what’s actually going to happen. If something even close to the proposal passed, it would be a major shift. As part of my book, I analyzed the regulations and the Denominaciones de Origen for tequila and mezcal. Since 1949, they have evolved in one direction: towards making mezcal and tequila less specific, less tied to particular places, with a focus on expanding markets. The original mezcal norma was almost an exact copy of the norm that regulated tequila, so the proposal is a big change. I’m intrigued to see what will happen.

  Are there any other models people should think about other than European wine?

  My dissertation research compared the Denominación de Origen for tequila with a case in France: Comté cheese, which is protected by an Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC), which is France’s version of a Denominación de Origen. Comté cheese is exemplary even in France. That case showed me what a focus on tradition and terroir can do. The AOC included rules that preserved the specific characteristics of the region, but that also had positive effects on farmers. As an example, they had a rule that all of the milk used to make Comté cheese had to come from within a 25 km radius of where the cheese was being made. This helped preserve the link to terroir and the taste of the cheese, but it also helped small farmers and cheesemakers, by discouraging industrial groups form coming in, because the made it harder for them to industrialize and achieve economies of scale.

  So there are examples that show the potential for what these kinds of labels can do. But it’s important not to idealize it too much. There are lots of examples of AOCs in France that are industrializing, where big companies are buying out out the small ones. So it’s not a perfect solution. You have to look in Mexico for things that will work there. To my knowledge, tequila is the first Denominación de Origen outside of Europe. Mexico is very different from Europe, so the exact same model isn’t going to work there. What is odd about Denominaciones de Origen in Mexico is that the legal definition is basically an exact copy of the French definition, but even though the idea of terroir is right there in the definition, in practice, the rules have never gone in the direction of preserving tradition or terroir. Some of the producers and retailers that I’ve talked to have proposed having smaller Denominaciones de Origens, which would be linked to a particular village or region, where there’s a sense of tradition in how mezcal has developed in that place.

  Politically what examples are mezcal makers looking at? Do they just look at the tequila model?

  I’ve talked to many mezcal producers who say, “Look at tequila; it’s been very successful. They built the market and improved quality.” That is true. The market for tequila tripled between 1995 and 2008. By many measures, it’s been very successful. But it has not been successful in terms of protecting the agave farmers, the environment, or the traditions that make tequila unique.

  The interesting thing about mezcal now is that there’s this divide between those who want to follow the tequila model, and people who don’t want that. Mezcal still has many small producers and traditions that have developed in particular regions, and there is still a chance of preserving that. The path for tequila has basically already been chosen.

  Politically, who knows? The role of the US matters. The United States has a lot of influence in Mexico. The United States agrees to protect tequila and mezcal as Mexican products, but we don’t recognize the concept Denominación de Origen as a legal concept. As an example of the influence of the US, a few years ago, a lot of people, including the president of Mexico at the time, proposed requiring that all tequila be bottled in Mexico. But they backed down due to opposition from the bottlers in the US and some of the tequila companies, many of which are owned by multinational companies. That case demonstrated the power of the US. In Mexico, the the revisions to the laws that established the procedure for establishing quality standards (the normas) for all Mexican products in the early 1990s were part of a fundamental neoliberal shift in Mexico, focused on increasing access export markets and foreign capital. The normas and the Denominación de Origen are not focusing on preserving tradition and terroir. They are about preserving market access. It will be interesting to see what happens with this proposal to change the normas that regulate mezcal. Whatever happens with this proposal will tell us something about which way the wind is blowing.

  What about tequila? Could it change?

  I interviewed a lot of tequila producers in 2006, and I think maybe one person used the word terroir. Many farmers, and some of the tequila producers, would talk about the way the agave grown in certain regions had particular characteristics, so there was definitely an understanding of the idea of terroir. But now there is a lot more emphasis on terroir. Some companies are saying that their tequila is single estate tequila, or even from a single farm or ranch. So there has definitely been a huge increase in how much people are talking about terroir.

  I think that some companies are doing interesting things, but I also think that some companies rely on a rhetoric of terroir, while continuing to source their agave from different regions. This may happen even more during periods of shortage. For the big companies especially, their strategy involves sourcing agave from all over the DO region, to get the best best price and supply. And of course, some companies have been accused of illegally buying agave from Oaxaca during periods of shortage. So in terms of really preserving a link to terroir and helping farmers and communities, for the biggest tequila companies, their talk about terroir and place is just rhetoric, because if they were really talking about it, it would really make them less flexible and put farmers at an advantage. We need to be talking more about the role of farmers in the tequila industry. But even when we’re talking about single estate tequilas, we’re not talking about how farmers are paid and treated. There are a lot of risks associated with cultivating agave for farmers, because it takes so long to mature. The prices fluctuate, and there is a lot of uncertainty. There needs to be more talk about the role of farmers and agricultural workers, and how they are being compensated.

QUOTED: "The book should find a general audience, and it should be required reading for proponents of local food."

Bowen, Sarah. Divided spirits: tequila, mezcal, and the politics of production
R.R. Wilk
53.8 (Apr. 2016): p1200.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about

Bowen, Sarah. Divided spirits: tequila, mezcal, and the politics of production. California, 2015. 256p bibl index afp (California studies in food and culture, 56) ISBN 9780520281042 cloth, $65.00; ISBN 9780520281059 pbk, $29.95; ISBN 9780520962583 ebook, contact publisher for price

(cc) 53-3549

HD9393

CIP

A Denomination of Origin (DO) gives legal protection to food produced in limited areas and by traditional methods. As DOs become more common, sociologist Bowen (North Carolina State Univ.) asks if they really do help to preserve the unique qualities of handcrafted food and drink from specific places. She uses the contrasting cases of Mexican tequila and mezcal, both traditional products made from the starchy hearts of the agave plant. Bowen finds that it depends on who is in control of the rules. Tequila is now dominated by huge multinational corporations that manipulate DOs to allow industrial equipment and a diluted and degraded product. Mezcal is still produced by many small distilleries, but Bowen shows why this tradition is in danger. Well researched and clearly written, this book makes a persuasive argument about the politics of terroir, the taste of place. With such a popular subject, the book should find a general audience, and it should be required reading for proponents of local food as well as students in the emerging discipline of food studies. Summing Up: *** Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.--R. R. Wilk, Indiana University

Wilk, R.R.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Wilk, R.R. "Bowen, Sarah. Divided spirits: tequila, mezcal, and the politics of production." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Apr. 2016, p. 1200. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA449661680&it=r&asid=458ac654b3f2ab212e792c11456de63c. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A449661680

Wilk, R.R. "Bowen, Sarah. Divided spirits: tequila, mezcal, and the politics of production." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Apr. 2016, p. 1200. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA449661680&asid=458ac654b3f2ab212e792c11456de63c. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.

• Mezcalistas
  http://mezcalistas.com/divided-spirits-the-mezcal-world-in-perspective/
  Word count: 1749

  QUOTED: "If ever there were a book for our time, this is it. Sarah Bowen has really captured a moment and set of issues with Divided Spirits."

  Divided Spirits – The mezcal world in perspective
  by Max Garrone on January 19, 2016

  If ever there were a book for our time, this is it. Sarah Bowen has really captured a moment and set of issues with Divided Spirits: Tequila, mezcal, and the politics of production. With the new NOM proposal dropping over Thanksgiving along with its béte noir 199 the recent history and investigation into what makes the tequila and mezcal industries tick in Divided Spirits will bring you right up to speed. We’re at this moment in time when big tequila remains incredibly popular, mezcal is a newcomer, and indie tequilas are proving just what artisans can do with blue agave. But the margins and growth are all on mezcal and indie tequila’s side, consumers want distinctive drinks that at least have a story, ideally one that’s true. You see the same trend everywhere, it’s what drove major brewers to purchase major beer indies like Lagunitas and Ballast Point late last year and what drove Patrón to create Roca.

  How did we get here? It’s pretty simple: While tequila grew by leaps and bounds as an incredible export through the post war era it really took Patrón and its followers in the 80’s to establish tequila as something with its own unique coolness factor. That led to enormous demand for tequila; to sip it, shoot it, mix it in cocktails. Hell, Robert Towne, who wrote Chinatown among many other classic movies, even titled his 1988 film Tequila Sunrise in the midst of this boom. Soon enough tequila was stocked in every bar worth its salt while tequila bars proliferated and the margarita became the most popular cocktail in the United States, if not the world. That much demand meant enormous production which, in the inexorable capitalist logic to these things, led to the complete industrialization of tequila. The bottles, dollars, land, agaves, and everything involved in this story are staggering. But it all meant one thing, what was once a dynamic and original spirit had become sadly commodified.

  That’s a nice pat history but Sarah Bowen really digs into the laws and politics that paved the road to this destination. As Chantal Martineau detailed in How the Gringos Stole Tequila, tequila is really a product of its time and place. It came out of the enormous haciendas in Jalisco, where the owners were focused on scale and economic progress so they industrialized as fast as possible pushing their native spirit into efficiencies of scale. They also wrote the laws to protect and refine what it means to be tequila. Really that means that tequila was industrialized and the Denominación de Origen (aka DO)or appellation laws that were written were less an expression of a tradition and more a way to drive sales.

  Sarah Bowen’s documentation of the progressive industrialization and weakening of tequila’s ties to its traditional past is fascinating and sad. Each adjustment to the law waters down tequila by adding things like mixtos, expanding where it can be made, and building the foundation for environmental collapse. The high flying idea of a DO so well established by European food cultures like Parmesan and Chianti were changed into a simple marketing device. The name tequila ceased to mean quality and tradition and that’s the critical problem.

  Her description of tequila’s obsession with empirical measures of quality instead of traditional methods of production as the key to defining what goes into a bottle is succinct and bizarre because it so clearly comes at the cost of the product, brand, and all the people involved in it. Tequila’s DO isn’t really interested in preserving tradition, the culture that surrounds it, or a flavor. It is interested in distilling as much tequila as possible for the lowest price and has redesigned the entire production process to cut costs to reach those low prices. The casualties are human and they are manifold.

  Foucault wouldn’t be out of place in this analysis, I’m sure he’d focus on the power of tequila companies, its extent, and the contradictions of globalization which is a focus of this book and much of what we talk about at Mezcalistas HQ. It’s especially important and interesting right now because mezcal is in the midst of redefining its own DO laws. Initially mezcal’s DO followed the tequila idea, the goal seemed to be, ‘let’s make as much of it as possible so that we can blow out the marketplace’ without any reference to all the incredibly varied mezcals, terroir, production methods, makers, and other factors that make it distinct, delicious, and valuable.

  The battle over NOM 186 and a related proposal is a real high point and is well told here because it brings up another dynamic critical to the evolution to the mezcal world – while mezcal can only be made in Mexico much of it is consumed by foreigners who also have made it into a cult like beverage with very high material and spiritual value. In 2011 the Mexican Institute of Industrial property floated a proposal to only allow producers within the already established Denominación to use the word “agave.” As Sarah points out “The proposal was as if France had proposed granting exclusive use of the word grapes to winemakers in the Bordeaux region.” Almost simultaneously NOM 186 popped up, a new quality proposal which would have required anyone outside of the DO to use the label “Agavaceae,” allowed 49% of non agave sugars in non DO spirits, and restricted those same makers from talking about how much agave was used in their production. Welcome to the proposal for an Orwellian future! Once proposed in 2011 an enormous cry went out against it but it seemed like the massive forces of industrialization would once again get their way. But something funny happened on the way to complete industrialization of mezcal; for once the process seemed to work. The normal public comment period didn’t just pass by with devotees lamenting the change, a coordinated group of mezcal makers and aficionados in North Americans jumped in to dominate the debate until NOM 186 was withdrawn in 2012.

  That was the first taste of a change in the mezcal world which has only expanded ever since. Mezcal makers in Mexico have shed any pretense of shyness and have worked through the process to created a new way of defining mezcal. The culmination of their work is a proposed law called NOM 70 which is now open for public comment. The proposal is a huge step back to the traditions that defined this spirit. It seems like the combined forces of mezcal producers and North American aficionados are pulling mezcal back towards the traditional European idea of a DO as something that recognizes an existing culture and describes how the entire web of relationships that makes it happen will function in the contemporary world.

  Sarah Bowen’s account of that struggle doesn’t stop at the narrative, she also digs into the fascinating confluence of factors that made it happen because, without international consumers absolutely obsessed with mezcal, that groundswell of support wouldn’t have been present. She really gets at why these aficionados, people like me and Susan!, are involved and provides a great snapshot of the struggle over authenticity that’s so important to North Americans and globalized marketing of mezcal. This is another moment that we’re so enmeshed with that it can be difficult to see out of – it’s the basis of our craft cocktails, craft beers, small wineries, Whole Foods, Etsy, and even carries over to the Apple v everyone narrative. As Sarah documents, we all want to believe so much in the power of authenticity that we’re missing all the other things that run our world, most especially the fact that capitalism really doesn’t leave any room for the most important elements. She sums it up nicely this way:“Consumers increasingly fetishize the local, the obscure, the handcrafted – precisely those characteristics that are threatened by the pressures of globalization.” Mezcal lover, welcome to the looking glass.

  After all that the conclusion of Divided Spirits is rather sanguine. At least year’s Mezcal: Mexico in a Bottle we hosted a “Future of Mezcal” discussion with Sarah Bowen, Hipocrates Nolasco of the CRM, and Wahaka’s Raza Zaidi. Sarah said some really interesting things but one of the most interesting was that once she read the CRM’s recent proposal for Nom 70 she had to rewrite the conclusion to Divided Spirits exactly because the future seemed to be changing right under her feet. On cue, the latest and potentially final text for NOM 70 was released for public comment on Thanksgiving Day. Dive in to see just how many things have changed in the recent years. The proposal is much more progressive than anything in the recent history of the tequila or mezcal industries even if it’s still obsessed with some of the same definitional issues in the tequila DO to the detriment of small farmers and distillers. And, it’s difficult to figure out how to actually comment which, despite all the democratic opening in the CRM feels like one of the continued legacies of its bureaucratic framework. We will circulate a petition to bridge that gap any day now.

  Sarah is an academic which is great because she brings rigor and the social sciences analytical mindset to this topic. Even though written from an academic context it’s far from stiff or overly verbose. Au contraire, that grounding works in its favor because those copious footnotes and broad bibliography are incredible resources. Even better, this is the latest in a series of books from the University of California Press called “California Studies in Food and Culture.” The list of all the books is in the back and online, it’s stocked with some pretty impressive titles which range from the very Californian (“Zinfandel: A History of a Grape and Its Wine“) to the very global (“The Untold History of Ramen“) which should be of instant interest to many of our readers.

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