Please join First Light Books and UT Austin's Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies for a spirited evening featuring Ronda L. Brulotte, author of MEZCAL IN OAXACA.

The evening will begin with an author reception from 6–6:30 with appetizers catered by First Light. The conversation will begin at 6:30 and include a guided mezcal tasting.

Tickets include a copy of the cookbook and a reserved seat. Unreserved seats are available on a first come, first served basis. Free RSVPs are also encouraged to help us with a headcount. This event is open to the public.

About the book

An ethnography of mezcal and how it has become a global, "artisanal" good.

Mezcal is booming. Once considered a peasant drink—the rough, lowbrow cousin of the more refined tequila—the smoky spirit is now prized by connoisseurs the world over. It is also hailed as a savior of Oaxaca, powering a craft industry that can uphold rural economies and Indigenous traditions.

Ronda L. Brulotte traces mezcal’s swift rise and its effects on communities that have distilled and enjoyed the beverage for generations. Only in the late 1990s did mezcal begin to escape its longstanding associations with Indigenous and working-class life, even as these very qualities supply the “authenticity” that elite consumers crave. Through a detailed ethnography of the spirits industry in Oaxaca, Brulotte compares the ideal of the artisanal economy with the reality of participation in global markets. Her findings—focused on tourism-led development and gentrification, the exploitation of women and smallholders, and swelling regional migration pressures—raise troubling questions about the ecological and social sustainability of a new craft imaginary that rebrands rustic products as luxury goods.

About the authors

Ronda L. Brulotte is a professor and chair of the Department of Geography & Environmental Studies and affiliated faculty in Anthropology and Latin American Studies at the University of New Mexico. She is the author of Between Art and Artifact: Archaeological Replicas and Cultural Production in Oaxaca, Mexico and coeditor of Edible Identities: Food as Cultural Heritage.

She will be joined in conversation by Raj Patel, a research professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin and a senior research associate at the Unit for the Humanities at Rhodes University. He studies the world food system and alternatives to it, and recently completed a documentary project about the food system. He has testified about hunger and food sovereignty to the U.S., U.K., and E.U. governments, and is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems. In addition to publications in journals about economics, philosophy, politics, international development and public health, Dr. Patel writes for a range of newspapers and co-hosts The Secret Ingredient podcast. His books include Stuffed and Starved and The Value of Nothing. He co-authored with Jason W. Moore A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature and the Future of the Planet, published by the University of California Press. Dr. Patel's latest book, co-authored with Rupa Marya, is Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice.

About LLILAS

The Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (LLILAS) at The University of Texas at Austin is an interdisciplinary program that integrates more than 30 academic departments and over 170 faculty across the university.