Worldwise: Master Distiller Iván Saldaña’s Favorite Things

Text size

“I’m extremely passionate about Mexico and its rich culinary heritage, and these spirits are a way to share that with the world,”
Iván Saldaña,
co-founder and master distiller at Casa Lumbre, says of his newest creations, Abasolo Ancestral Corn Whisky and Nixta Licor de Elote, an ancestral corn liqueur. 

As a biologist focused on plant biochemistry, Saldaña, 43, developed tequilas and mezcals, most notably Montelobos and the spicy liqueur
Ancho Reyes
for Casa Lumbre, before turning his gustatory system to corn in 2013. “I started to investigate how I could take the soul of this beautiful crop and translate it into products that could speak with what nature intended, in a resolute way,” Saldaña says. 

After experimenting with 15 varieties, Saldaña started to question the relevance of making whisky in Mexico. “It was not enough to use ancestral corn, it had to work with the ancient Mexican methods that bring out the character and uniqueness to the way we actually consume corn in Mexico,” he says. 

The 4,000-year-old Mexican method, called nixtamalization, is a process in which the chosen non-GMO corn variety Cacahuazintle is soaked in an alkaline solution that brings out the corn’s sweetness and increases its nutritional value. Nixtamalization is fundamental in preparing Mexico’s ubiquitous corn tortilla, but hadn’t been used in whisky production. 

Upon tasting his novel creation—which is described as having notes of roasted corn, honey, vanilla, black tea and leather—Saldaña says he was thrilled. “I thought that I was capable of bringing a truly differentiated flavor to the world of whisky. When you think on most of the whiskeys in the world, you will have mostly those that are influenced by the scotch whisky, like the Japanese whisky is a refined scotch whisky,” he says. “In our case, the flavor we are bringing out is truly something different.”

Saldaña shared a few of his favorite things with Penta.

My favorite cocktail is… an old fashioned with a little bit of Nixta. It’s a very special drink.

One of my favorite things about Mexico is… the diversity, both culturally and biologically. I think I’m incredibly lucky to be in a place where there’s so much manifestation of the natural world, as well as the cultural world.

The best book I’ve read in the past year is… I’m rediscovering
Octavio Paz’s
El laberinto de la soledad (The Labyrinth of Solitude), which is a very beautiful, poetic essay on Mexican culture. 

If I were to buy a piece of art, it would be… 
Edvard Munch’s
The Scream. It’s one of the most moving paintings I have ever seen. It makes a very powerful expression of the individual who happens to exist in this world and who has moments in which it’s unbearable. 

The restaurant in my hometown that I love to take visitors to is… Maximo Bistro. I love to take people there. It’s an outstanding restaurant for fine dining. For tacos, El Favorito has the best pastors in the city. 

As soon as I can travel without any restrictions, I want to go to… I would love to go to Japan again. I went two years ago and became fascinated with it. The sake was, for me, super exotic. The food was amazing. The aesthetics of things, obsession to the craft and the details, the intercommunity, the physical intercommunication of people [not a full sentence?].

The thing that gets me up in the morning is… my two kids wake me up really well!

The people who inspired me to do what I do are… professionally,
Humberto Maturana,
a philosopher and neurobiologist. I’m inspired by his notion that professionally you are not one thing in particular, you’re constantly exploring one profession after another. He’s been a strong source of inspiration for relearning and reinventing and makes me believe that you can become an expert in multiple disciplines. 

My father,
Humberto Saldaña,
encourages me to pursue my own happiness, and I feel like I’m fulfilling a lot of his dreams. He’s a writer and poet, and has been able to express himself greatly through his work. He believes that it’s not only what you know, but the things you feel and how you’re able to express them that make you better. It’s hard to do that as an entrepreneur, but I delve into science, business, and other pursuits to show my true self and the things I’m passionate about. 

If I could have a drink with anyone, anywhere, it would be… 
Werner Heisenberg
at a park in Berlin, having coffee—not even spirits—and discussing the principle of uncertainty, which I think is the most marvelous discovery of the last century in every dimension of knowledge and life. 

The one thing in my kitchen that I cannot live without is… a tiny little pan where I can fry one egg at a time.

A childhood memory I treasure… taking a boat ride with my father on my ninth birthday in Manzanillo, Mexico. We were fishing when we caught two marlins on our lines. They were trying to get free of our lines and both simultaneously jumped in the air to try and do so. It was a beautiful and rare moment that I’ll never forget. Don’t worry—we let them both go!

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.