Daniel Cruz Maldonado

Descendant of multiple generations of palenqueros, Maestro Daniel Cruz Maldonado was born in Logoche in 1968. At age 14, he started to assist is father in productions made at the palenque of don Nicolás García Vásquez, which after years of clandestine use had only recently begun to operate under a legal license. Absorbing much through these early experiences working alongside an older generation of mezaleros, Daniel worked at this shared space until 1997. These years following the implementation of NAFTA in 1994 saw a mass exodus from the countryside and great numbers or subsistence farmers left their villages for the cities or in search of work in the United States. Daniel found work through family in a pharmacy outside of Mexico City where he stayed for a few years before heading further north. After four years of working different construction jobs around the US, Daniel returned home to reunite with his wife, Luisa, and raise a family together.

During his absence, his compadre, Cutberto had installed a palenque next to his house, across the river from Daniel’s ranch. In exchange for rent, a payment of 5 liter per fermentation vat, Daniel made a few small batches every year at Cutbero’s palenque for from 2004-2022, until inaugurated his own facility in January 2023. Having installed a single 250L capacity copper pot still and an ox-drawn stone mill, he and his family now work adjacent to their beautiful home to craft their small batch productions. Over the last half of the decade, Daniel has been extremely proactive in his reforestation efforts of both native plants and agave and involved in a multitude of community led projects and groups dedicated to the preservation of their ecosystems. The family cultivates a wide diversity of different species of local agave and dasyilirion plants, and additionally harvest the wild bicuixe, coyote, tepextate, and tobalá that grow on their land.

Daniel and his family’s small productions are reflectively of the old flavors and practices found in Miahuatlán and are exemplary expressions of the regional terruño or terroir.