CORO, VENEZUELA – María Durán walks through the La Esperanza farm, where the agave plants disappear into the arid terrain. She acquired it with her husband José de Luca five years ago with the purpose of making cocuy, a drink with a very bad reputation in Venezuela. Cocuy is an ancestral drink made from agave, similar to Mexican mezcal, prepared in an artisanal way, which in recent years has gained international recognition. But why does it not enjoy a good reputation among Venezuelans? «We differ a lot from tequila, but we are very similar to mezcal,» says Durán. Homemade concoctions adulterated or mixed with this liquor without sanitary protocols contributed to the bad reputation of the product, prejudices, and stigma. In some cases, the drink even became associated with deaths. «It takes at least a decade, if not a generation, to completely clean the name of cocuy,» Durán comments to the Voice of America. In any upscale bar in Caracas, more than one person wrinkles their nose at the mention of cocuy. «Seriously?» they ask. The same thing happened before with rum. «In the recent past, it was a drink associated with poverty, now with quality,» explains De Luca, the master winemaker who puts his signature on each bottle he produces for Magno, the brand he launched to the market with Durán two years ago. «I always told my team that it was difficult,» he continues. «If it was difficult for rum, which was wrongly called a drink for the poor, cocuy was the drink of the drunkard: it wasn’t true, but that’s what they created, what they invented, and what people thought.» Traditional cocktails like the margarita, prepared with cocuy, timidly begin to appear on bar menus. In liquor stores, the price of a bottle of Cocuy can range from $24 to $70, depending on the brand. The National Assembly approved the Law for the Protection and Promotion of the Production of Agave Cocui, Cocuy, and its artisanal derivatives. International Recognition La Esperanza is located on the outskirts of Coro, in the state of Falcón (west). The heat here is relentless: take two steps and sweat begins to pour down the body. De Luca proudly walks among the wild agaves, which take between 7 to 10 years to be viable for turning into liquor. Along the way, there are holes in the ground that were once used as natural ovens for the agave piñas, which would later end up in the still, located in a distillery in the city. «We differ a lot from tequila, but we are very similar to mezcal,» De Luca explains. «It takes at least a decade, if not a generation, to completely clean the name of cocuy.» In a greenhouse, they conduct planting and plant preservation tests, thinking about the future as they technify the process further. Cocuy production is far from the industrialization that characterizes, for example, rum. Last August, Magno Cocuy produced 1,170 liters of this liquor. And De Luca adds: «We know that one brand alone does not create a segment (…) thank God there are others. And let’s hope that little by little we can add up so that in about five or ten years we can be a market, a boom of great volume, and we can be on par with rums.» In any case, the work is focused on «cleaning» and «dignifying» its reputation. «There is a lot of misinformation regarding the issue, and people don’t know that there have been rules for cocuy production since 2001,» Durán insists. In 2021, Magno competed with three of its products in the prestigious New York International Spirits Competition and went up against more than 40 countries and more than 1,400 beverages in the Agave-Tequila segment. «The three products we sent all received medals, as well as the Distillery of the Year designation for Venezuela,» explains De Luca with a smile. On their bottle, of course, are the awards they won against other Mexican mezcals, kings in the category. «We call ourselves the new face of cocuy,» celebrates Durán. In 2021, Venezuela won silver medals with Magno Cocuy products. Quality Certification In the state of Lara, there is also Pecaya, the only town in the country that has the Controlled Denomination of Origin (DOC) for cocuy, which was granted to them in 2001 by the autonomous service of intellectual property. Durán, De Luca, and other producers aspire to expand that DOC to the whole country so that production standards are national, but it requires the organization of the entire guild. «It is important because it is a seal of quality that sets you apart from the rest» with conditions that give you a differentiated product, «explains De Luca. In May, the Parliament approved the Law for the Protection and Promotion of the Production of Agave Cocui, Cocuy, and its derivatives. «After years of resistance, persecution, and demonization, today this Parliament approves this unprecedented law for the protection, promotion of cultivation and planting,» said Deputy Julio Chávez (government supporter), the law’s promoter. The law states that ‘agave cocui’ will be considered an agricultural product as long as it is cultivated in xerophytic ecosystems, with the aim of maintaining the biological diversity specific to each region. It also allows for semi-industrial and industrial production of cocuy, which was previously only allowed in an artisanal way. Agave cocui is a plant that grows wild in the western mountains of Venezuela. And everything starts at La Esperanza. «We decided to name the farm La Esperanza because we stopped building houses to enter competitions and put all our eggs in one basket,» says Durán excitedly. Both of them were previously dedicated to the construction business. There are plans to replant hectares of agaves for annual production and offer guided tours to tourists. «If in Mexico, a large part of the country’s income comes from mezcal and tequila, why can’t we achieve the same with cocuy in Venezuela?» insists Durán. And she concludes, «the goal is for this to become an industry worthy of admiration and national pride.» Connect with Voice of America! Subscribe to our YouTube channels, WhatsApp, and newsletter. Activate notifications and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Fuente de TenemosNoticias.com: www.vozdeamerica.com
Publicado el: 2023-09-06 14:05:53
En la sección: América Latina – Voice of America