I was joking with a friend yesterday about the expansion of uncertified agave spirits, and how new companies expect thousands of customers to spend $150+ on countless new expressions with zero context and almost no understanding of the market.

“These labels have an entire book’s worth of information on them, but no one can tell me in their own words why it’s good,” I said to my friend; “It’s like a bunch of guys all repeating the same thing someone else told them, thinking that’s what connoisseurship is.”

Have you ever heard someone talk about terroir a priori, as if simply understanding what’s in the soil meant the product was good?

I was always taught to talk about wine and spirits a posteriori, meaning you start with how it tastes and then—if, and only if, it’s good—you work backward as to why it tastes the way it does.

I’m all about selling unique, small production uncertified agave spirits to the masses, so long as we’re invested in the long game, rather than just a temporary fad. In order to expand their awareness, consumers need to taste as many different agave distillates as possible, and that’s difficult when bars are closed and bottles of wild agave spirits are $100+ for what represents a complete uncertainty.

That’s why I’m absolutely thrilled with the new five bottle sample pack from Luneta Spirits (check out their fantastic website by clicking here). Focusing on unique distillates from Puebla, San Luis Potosí, and Oaxaca, they’ve put together a tasty, interesting, and educational set that won’t break the bank, and that combines wild agave staples like cuishe and tobalá with exotic offshoots like papalometl, fermented in bull hides and distilled in tree trunks!

All the specs are on the website, along with photos and flavor charts that are detailed, but simple to understand.

I was so impressed I immediately reached out to Jed Wolf for an Instagram Live date, which is happening tomorrow at 3 PM on the @missionliquor site.

Check it out.

-David Driscoll