No. 78
Ron Cooper:
Del Maguey and
the Magic of Mezcal
The Banter
The Guys read about a food group that works as a de-stresser.
The Conversation
The Restaurant Guys have Ron Cooper on to talk about his Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal. Dive into the agave weeds listening to the centuries-old traditions and processes including one involving distilling with a suspended chicken breast.
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Ron Cooper
Ron Cooper is an American artist who grew up in Ojai, California and started his career in the late 1960s in Los Angeles. By 1973, Cooper had already participated in numerous international solo and group shows with pieces in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum
and LACMA, and special exhibitions such as that at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art.
In Oaxaca, Cooper lived and worked with the locals, and strived to bring Mezcal to the world at large. He founded Del Maguey in the 1990s, bringing Mezcal to American consumers as an artisanal or craft ingredient for many creative cocktails. Cooper has done dinner pairings with chefs José Andrés, and Mary Sue Milliken appeared on CNN with Anthony Bourdain, and in 2016 Cooper was awarded the James Beard Award for “Outstanding Wine, Beer, or Spirits Professional”
THE INSIDE TRACK
The Guys are familiar with Ron’s high-quality products that he sources from mezcal experts out in the villages of Oaxaca. He describes traveling away from urban areas to get the truest expressions of the spirit.
“I realized very fast that kilometer by kilometer, the closer a good Mezcal got to the city, the more adulterated and watered down it became. So I made it my mission to make it available to me and my friends in the United States,”
Ron Cooper on The Restaurant Guys Podcast 2006
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