Photography by Samantha Demangate Oaxaca, Mexico, is a land you can’t comprehend until you’ve been there. And even then, you can only scratch the surface. For outsiders, it’s a place hidden in time. Lost but not forgotten. Inaccessible yet close and connected. Life here revolves around a fusion of traditions and ways of doing things that go back thousands of years. Like any culture, the best introduction is through its food. In Oaxaca, food goes…
What’s better than a week long mezcal safari? Driving through the Oaxacan countryside and walking through Oaxaca de Juárez, the state’s beautiful capital, we set out to discover mezcal’s wild origins and bright future. Noble spirits are like time capsules for memories. Once you have one, you never forget. Time, care, and unyielding respect go into forging them. Oaxaca, Mexico’s cherished Mezcal, is no different. Famed throughout the world by mixologists and gourmands, Mezcal continues…
Photography by Samantha Demangate “It tastes like sweet aloe beer!” Explained my girlfriend when she tried her first sip of pulque. In a bar in downtown Mexico City, in a neighborhood near the famed center for Lucha Libre wrestling, we took our first sips out of a large ceramic jug. Pronounced pul-kay, the drink is a sacred leftover from antiquity that, according to many fanatics, is reaffirming itself as Mexico’s unofficial national drink. Pulque comes…
This year, I had the honor of helping my friend Barry O’Brien in his vineyard in Grand Traverse County’s Old Mission Peninsula. We worked our way through the growing season of 2021, bearing unpredictable elements, wildlife, and the demanding needs of the grapes themselves. As a beginning vine worker, I documented the changes, hardships, and peculiarities of the grapes and the land they grow on while learning about the hard work that goes into farming…
Photography by Samantha Demangate In the highlands of Chiapas, far removed from the tropical heat of the coastal valleys, is the Pueblo Magico of San Cristobal de las Casas. At the heart of the city are the indigenous societies that have controlled this land for millennia. Their plight following the NAFTA trade agreement sparked one of Latin America’s most famous armed revolutions and put San Cristobal in the spotlight for its modern leftist revolution and…