History

El General

“Men, like trees, have their roots; they are bonds that tie them to their past, their race, their environment, and their heritage,” stated Jesús Sotelo Inclán in his work *Raíz y razón de Zapata*. He continues: “One must delve into the historical past of each individual to discover their obscure origins, their essential elements—everything that may be represented and intertwined in the very earth from which man is made.”

In Morelos, his birthplace, we recognize the invaluable legacy of the man who led a struggle not for money, but for the law; a struggle not for power, but for justice. In Zapata, we find the faithful heir to a long-standing tradition of defending the rights of the people, recognizing himself as just one of his fellow countrymen, building community day by day within a framework of respect and the rule of law.

Under the motto “Justice and Law,” the people of the south promulgated the Plan of Ayala, whose fundamental premise was the assertion of the peoples’ rights to the lands, waters, and forests—rights that had been violated for centuries of exploitation. It was, in the words of its own creators, a solemn manifesto “before the face of the civilized world that judges us and before the nation to which we belong and which we love.”

The Plan de Ayala became the benchmark for drafting and disseminating—from the headquarters of the Southern Liberation Army in Tlaltizapán—manifestos, laws, and decrees that gave the 1910 movement an ideological meaning unlike any other revolutionary movement. The Plan of Ayala was the seed that the men and women of the South nurtured with their struggle, their labor, and their lives, cultivating the fields of their aspirations.

Thus, we discover Emiliano through his origins, through his people, and in the light of his ideals; we discover him in the towns of Morelos that, day after day, continue to water with sweat and, through hard work, reap the fruits of the bountiful southern land.

Author: Jesús Zavaleta Castro

Columna

Prof. Lucía Emma

Cazales Quintero

Born in the community of Valle de Vázquez in the municipality of Tlaquiltenango, Morelos, to a family of farmers, she found her passion in the countryside. Due to the prejudices of her time, her father refused to let her study to become an agricultural engineer, forcing her to choose between staying home or training to be a secretary, since farm work was considered a man’s job. Resigned to her fate, she began her studies and became a secretary; however, she decided to go further and trained to become a natural sciences teacher, without losing sight of the countryside she was so passionate about.

Upon inheriting some rain-fed plots, she devoted herself to harvesting corn, a traditional crop of the region; but since her land was not very productive, she sought alternative crops that would yield a higher profit margin. This is how she came to learn about agave cultivation at a time when the tequila industry was seeking to expand cultivation to other soils that offered better plant quality.

The agave plants available in the state of Morelos at that time were of poor quality, so Professor Emma sought other options and discovered the Oaxaca espadín agave, which had better characteristics at the time and would adapt better to her plots.

That’s how her love for agaves began. With no experience in cultivation, she planted her fields with agaves, intending to be merely a plant producer so that others could process them. When the agaves reached maturity, buyers offered ridiculous prices—50 cents per kilo—a price that wasn’t even enough to cover the cost of removing the plants from the fields.

Desperate as hectares of maguey with heads weighing over 200 kilos were about to mature, she had no choice but to find a solution to minimize her losses. That’s how she became involved in the mezcal production chain.

Using her own resources and government support, she managed to set up a small distillery in her home, equipped with a small 300-liter copper still and a concrete oven for cooking the agave heads. She hired a master mezcal maker from the El Rincón region in Miacatlán, Morelos, where people have been dedicated to mezcal production for generations.

This is how her adventure in the world of agave spirits began, facing unfair competition, envy, and contempt for being a woman in a world generally dominated by men, both in the countryside and in the industry.

However, without giving up and taking small but steady steps, she managed to start a company, Destilería Cazales. She sought guidance from various institutions to ensure her product focused on quality, not quantity, and improved her processes based on feedback from different academics who visited the distillery to help enhance her operations. She always sought to ensure that what set her product apart was its quality and artisanal process.

Her flagship product is called *Lo Que Toma El General* (What the General Drinks). She chose this name because, as a businesswoman who is 100% from Morelos, she holds General Emiliano Zapata Salazar—*El Caudillo del Sur*—in high esteem, and because of the admiration Prof. Lucía Emma Cazales Quintero has always held for him, she spent her youth talking with the last remaining Zapatistas in her native Vázquez Valley.

There she met a man who told her that, at the height of the agrarian movement, he was a young “tlacualero”—an errand boy, as we would say today—and he was tasked with going to the ravines to fetch mezcal for the General. However, since its production was clandestine, he transported the mezcal in sheet-metal pails—the kind normally used to carry milk—to give the appearance of everyday normality. Also, as soon as he arrived at the pickup point, he was forbidden from saying, “I’m here for the mezcal.” No, the code phrase the boy had to say was, “I’m here for what the General drinks,” and that’s how he smuggled the mezcal that the General would later consume.

Fascinated by the story, Prof. Emma realized that the identity of her product would be centered on the “Caudillo del Sur,” since, in her opinion, he is the best symbol of Morelos. So she decided to name her first mezcal from Morelos *Lo Que Toma El General*.