Maturation

Casa Agave, the distillery in Pomasqui near Quito, today bottles its Miske in two variants. One is a clear Blanco, also labeled "Silver," bottled straight after distillation. The other is a Reposado, which rests briefly in wooden barrels. It's the same twofold division familiar from tequila, just without its legally defined time requirements.

For tequila, Reposado must age at least two months in barrel, and Añejo at least one year. The Miske designation of origin does not yet prescribe such timeframes. What's labeled "Reposado" on the bottle is therefore more a matter of the distillery's practice than a fixed rule — a promise, not a law.

Chawar, the distillery in Yaruqui near Quito's airport, also offers a clear Chawar Blanco in its lineup. Alongside it is a special bottling named after the volcano, Chawar Cotopaxi. Both, according to the distillery, were awarded silver at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2026. This shows that the young market is already being recognized internationally.

The absence of a fixed aging system so far is no flaw, but rather a reflection of a young market. Miske has only been distilled for about five decades, and sold for less than two. The categories that other agave spirits negotiated over more than a century are only just now emerging here, bottle by bottle.

What this means for drinkers: categories like Reposado, or a possible Añejo style, are still being written. They're being written by exactly those family operations that harvest the Tzawar by hand today. Step by step, a tradition of its own is taking shape.