Description
After falling in love with mezcal and realising at the time the selection within the UK was slim, Sin Gusano creator Jon decided to leave his career behind and start a new one evolving around education in mezcal!
The false idea that mezcal always has a worm in the bottle started out as a marketing gimmick back in the 50s and so he called his new venture: Sin Gusano or ‘without worm’ which is also to be synonymous with ‘no gimmicks’.
It began as a pop-up mezcal tasting room with offerings from what Jon would be able to pack in a suitcase and bring back from Mexico.
Over the years Sin Gusano has grown and is now importing rare, very limited edition distillates; has a fantastic subscription club called MAS or Mezcal Appreciation Society; and retailers of their distillates and tasting flights.
Jon spends a lot of time in Mexico meeting producers who he can work with and has now for a while worked with Nicolas in Miahuatlan, who experiments with small batch ensembles of different agave species.
Jon says that for him a major part to starting the business was to try and work with agave spirits in a broader way than ‘just buying and selling a product at the most competitive prices possible.’ From the beginning Sin Gusano has operated a ‘giving back’ programme which is in its essence a profit share with 10% of profits going to SACRED, which funds sustainability projects.
He’s also partnered with an agave sustainability project in Oaxaca run by Rezpiral Mezcal who take agave seed donations from a region rich in a certain species to cultivate them until they are ready for transplanting in another region. A great way to help keep diversity alive in regions where agaves have been over harvested.
I highly recommend signing up to MAS here: SIN GUSANO and delve deep in to the rabbit hole of mezcals beauty, diversity and culture.
