Mezcal Carreño: From Mezcal to Rum to Wine and Back to Mezcal

When Lorena Carreño was growing up on her family’s San Dionisio Ocotlán hacienda she remembers some agaves on the property, but mostly she remembers sugar cane fields. While her grandfather and elder generations grew agaves and made mezcal, Carreño is one of ten siblings and to send each of the kids to college her dad transformed the hacienda’s property to produce what was most profitable at the time: sugar cane. In the 1950s through 70s the family made molasses for Ron Castillo, a Bacardi-owned rum brand. Her uncles and cousins also grew sugar cane and would bring their harvests to the hacienda.