Church at Mitla, Oaxaca
The sleepy village of Mitla lies about 40 kilometers to the east of Oaxaca City along the Panamerican highway.
Named by the Spaniards after San Pablo Mitla, Mitla’s quaint, narrow and colorful streets are home to textile merchants as well as to a great number of Mezcal producers and vendors. The area produces corn and beans, including the castor bean from which castor oil is derived.
Mitla’s Church, surrounded by fences of tall, spiky cactus, dominates the village and lies in the midst of an extensive archaeological site.
Mitla Street
Next to the Church is an open-air crafts market set under the nearby trees, where local craftspeople offer embroidered regional garments, hand-painted wooden figures and an assortment of other colorful crafts.
While in Mitla, we stopped into one of the many mezcals factories of the area for a quick tour and found out how mezcal was produced, and sampled many of the different mezcals that included sweet, creme Mezcal liquors.
Mitla Oaxaca Ruins
Mitla’s archaeological site consists of 5 areas of construction, the oldest of which is believed to date from between 450 and 700 A.C.
In Mitla we see a strong influence of the Mixteca culture on the Zapotec architecture of the area. The low stepped structures of Mitla are decorated with a variety of geometric designs, and it is thought that the zone was constructed in two different periods.
Best preserved of the buildings is the Column Complex just south of the Church. Monolithic columns supported the roof structure, and in this area one can enter subterranean chambers, tombs that were discovered in 1901 and that date from Oaxaca’s post-classic period.
 Mitla pyramid detail |
 Mitla Archaeological site |
Making Mezcal in Mitla
 Mitla Mezcal |
 Pencas de maguey |
Outside of Mitla on the road to Oaxaca City are several roadside Mezcal factories. On our trip in the early fall of 2000, we stopped at one of these. The small establishment was called “Pegaso”, and it put out mezcals under the labels of “Pegaso” and “Indio Mexicano”.
Entering the shop, we were greeted by a young man who promptly began to give us a show-and-tell about the various types of Mezcal, from the rawer mountain species to the more palatable aged varieties and flavored “cremes” of Mezcal. He pulled out a couple of small, plastic cups and presented us with an array of samples, best of which (in my opinion) was the dark, aged, smooth mezcal and the easily imbibable cremes flavored with natural essences of orange, lemon, cacao and mint, though purists would probably scoff at my preference…
He then offered to show us through the factory, which wasn’t producing at the moment and therefore was deserted. He started off the tour by pointing out the various maguey plants from which the spikes are cut. After harvesting, these pencas de maguey are placed in a pit with hot coals and left to burn over a period of some 72 hours. Once thoroughly charred, the pencas are removed from the pit and left to cool by the edge of the pit.
After cooling, the charred maguey is transported to a heavy mill-stone, where it is crushed and ground to extract the juices. These juices, together with the pulp, are removed to large wooden vats, where they are left to ferment. The mill-stone here at Pegaso was as primitive as they come, a huge wheel that is turned by means of a post that traverses the center of it and pushed or pulled around in a circle by brute force.
Once fermented, the liquid is drained off and double-distilled before finally being bottled.
Mitla: Town of the Souls and Other Zapoteco-Speaking Pueblos of Oaxaco, Mexico
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