After living overseas for 25 years, Sebastian O’Keefe returned home with the dream of creating a world‑class agave spirit, using plants introduced in colonial times that are now used as cattle feed. O’Keefe told Biznews in an interview that he and his partner criss‑crossed the country testing plants and discovered rare ‘Red Agave’ thriving in a dry, salty, high‑altitude place in the Klein Karoo near Ladismith. Harvested by hand, gently steamed in dairy tanks and fermented with wild yeast, the first batch of Inzalo Agave Spirits will roll off the line in the next two weeks. Deliberately not called tequila or mezcal (those names are protected), Inzalo is being positioned as the founding member of an entirely new, proudly South African category of agave spirit. He said as they started working with the spirit their ambitions grew to not only create the greatest agave spirit outside of Mexico but to create a new class of agave spirits, something that is completely unique to South Africa. And it will include two varieties, Batch One, a white spirit, and Barrel One, an aged version to be sipped slowly to cater for local tastes.

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