The Women Harvesters Fueling the Rise of an Ecuadorian Spirit

Guagrilla is the head distiller of Chawar, a company that produces an emerging agave spirit called miske, a distilled version of the agave sap that became commercially available only in the last decade. Behind Chawar’s production is Ecuador’s first all-women’s agave harvesting co-op, Mishkita, which has 12 members between the ages of 25 and 60 who all cultivate plants in the highlands about an hour northeast of Quito. “It’s an association where we can share experiences, and grow as women,” Guagrilla says.

Indigenous women in Ecuador have harvested agave plants for millennia, using these spiky succulents for everything from shampoos and laundry soaps to medicines, textiles, and traditional crafts. The agave’s sap, known as chawarmishki, was an early sweetener in the Ecuadorian highlands before Spanish conquistadors introduced sugar cane. Women have harvested chawarmishki as a juice for centuries, and may have spontaneously fermented it into a kind of alcoholic chicha called guarango (similar to Mexican pulque) for nearly as long.

The word chawarmishki comes from Quechua, with chawar, meaning “raw,” and mishki, for “sweet.” Notably, in between the two is warming: “That means woman,” says Guagrilla. “This tradition, or profession, has been done by women since the old times, and they have always been the ones dedicated to cultivating and harvesting the agave.”

Before forming Mishkita, these women delivered a weekly supply of about 20 liters of agave nectar to local restaurants in the town of Cayambe, selling what extra they could on the side of the road. Now, they supply a minimum of 20 liters daily to Chawar’s distillery in Yaruqui, near Quito’s international airport. This steady revenue stream has enabled many of the women to become the primary earners in their families.

It’s a story now repeating across the Ecuadorian highlands as miske becomes a trendy beverage both at home and abroad. Once denigrated as a drink for the poor, the spirit emerged in the early 2020s as a staple at high-end bars in Quito and Guayaquil. It even became the first drink in Ecuador to receive a denomination of origin in 2023. The hope is that the increased attention—and respect—can help preserve an important part of Ecuador’s culture while also conserving its disappearing tropical dry forests.

Chawar traces its origins to Eliot Logan-Hines, an American who’s also the director of sustainable commodities at the Wildlife Conservation Society. After receiving funding from the MacArthur Foundation in 2018, Logan-Hines used an eight-year grant to build a distillery that would generate income for rural communities while also driving conservation in the Ecuadorian highlands, whose native species have been eradicated to make way for greenhouses holding heavily-fertilized flower farms.

Currently, just 5 percent of tropical dry forests remain intact, according to Nature and Culture International. By sustainably harvesting agave on lands that would otherwise be destined for agriculture, Chawar helps to turn the tide on deforestation.

Mature agave plants at least 10 years old can produce nearly four liters of chawarmishki daily for up to 200 days before dying. Women in co-ops like Mishkita return throughout the week to harvest the sap, and then deliver it to the distillery. The Andean varietal of the Agave americana plant is said to be particularly good for distillation due to the perpendicular sunlight near the equator, which helps increase the sugars needed for fermentation.

Miske may have arrived on the market at just the right time. The combined category of mezcal and tequila is the fastest-growing spirit category in the U.S., according to the Distilled Spirits Council. Agave-based brands have also exploded around the world, from India to South Africa, “but none of them are based in ancestral traditions,” explains Logan-Hines, noting that only Mexico, Ecuador, and Venezuela (with cucuy) have a history of agave distillates.

“Generations of women in my family have all harvested agave,” says María Carmela Farinango, a member of Mishkita who remembers joining her mom and grandmother in the fields when she was just 10 years old. They would produce the more rustic spirit guarango for festivals and minkas, or collective harvests. The 55-year-old also recalls eating dishes, like the stew arroz de cebada, cooked with agave nectar. Yet, these traditions were declining, alongside the value of chawarmishki, until miske’s newfound commercial appeal in the past few years.

Miske is not some copycat Ecuadorian tequila or mezcal, which are both made from the baked core of agave plants. By contrast, it’s greener and pepperier, derived from fermenting raw agave sap. “I like to make the comparison with rum and cachaça,” explains Logan-Hines, noting that the former is made from cooked molasses and the latter fresh cane juice. “Tequila is to rum, what miske is to cachaça,” he says.

Of course, it doesn’t taste like rum, cachaça, or even tequila. Unoaked bottles of miske tend to have a fresher, juicier profile than cooked agave spirits since there are no caramelized sugars. Meanwhile, oak-aged bottles carry the kind of sweet vanilla notes more closely associated with whiskey.

“This is not Ecuadorian tequila; this is not Ecuadorian mezcal; this is miske, and it’s its own thing,” assures Diego Mora, founder of Casa Agave, a distillery whose bottles have won several awards at the World Spirits Competition and European Spirits Challenge. Mora dreams that miske will one day be seen as Ecuador’s national drink, akin to pisco in neighboring Peru.

To help push the needle, he built a small museum at his distillery on the northern edge of Quito near the Middle of the World City, a tourist complex on the equator. It’s become a key venue for educating Ecuadorians and foreigners alike on the unique story of miske, as well as its distinct flavor profile.

Visitors also actively take part in agave forest restoration by potting baby plants, which are later transported to the nearby Pomasqui Valley. There are also walks through an agave garden with 27 varieties, tastings of both raw and distilled chawarmishki, and exhibits sharing the long history of mishqueras, or agave harvesters.

Few women wanted to continue down the traditional path of a mishquera, but now there’s a sense of pride, explains Mora, noting how commercialization of the spirit has helped empower rural communities in the Andean valleys near Quito. “It’s one of the most cultural spirits in the region because there is not another product that has 1,000 years of tradition behind the bottle.”

Farinango agrees. “We are proud of what we are doing,” she says. “We are proud of this plant that gives us a juice we can sell.”

Bartenders in the Ecuadorian capital have integrated this local spirit into their menus. Many use it as a tequila substitute in margaritas or palomas, but others have gotten more creative.

At the high-end eatery Somos, there’s a cocktail that pairs unoaked Casa Agave miske with ginger beer, orange liqueur and a hint of smoked palo santo. La Mezcalería in the hip La Floresta neighborhood makes miske mules and miske negronis with unoaked Chawar. The cocktail bar at Casa Agave offers a twist on the highland Ecuadorian beverage canelazo, which has panela, cinnamon water, and naranjilla (a citrus-like nightshade). Instead of the traditional aguardiente, it’s spiked with miske.

After gracing menus at Ecuador’s top bars and restaurants, miske is now coming for the U.S. market. Chawar has, since 2020, built a cult following in the seven states where it’s available, including Colorado, New York, and Texas. Casa Agave will arrive stateside later this year. Shot-loving Americans have discovered that miske goes down even smoother than cousins tequila and mezcal.

Back in Ecuador, Farinango is hopeful that a growing market for miske will help change the economic outlook of rural communities like hers. “We’re Indigenous people; we’re poor people; we’re older women who live from the agave,” she says. “We don’t have other job prospects. So if more people buy miske, we can harvest more plants and keep sending our kids to school.”

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