Traditional MEZCAL producers living around the Colima volcanoes and the Tuxcacuesco-Ayuquila-Armeria River Basin are the successors of a tradition born thousands of years ago, when their ancestors incorporated the cooked hearts of the maguey plant into their alimentary culture. Today, they are the legitimate heirs of the varieties, knowledge and techniques involved in elaborating MEZCAL, almost all of which are of pre-Hispanic origin: over 20 traditional varieties, cooking of maguey in underground ovens, grinding the plant to extract its juice over rocks, and fermenting the must in rock-lined wells with capacities as large as 1000 liters (265 gallons). The actual distiller, however, is of Asian origin. Introduced into the area at least 400 years ago, it is made of easily available, rustic materials. Recently, Daniel Zizumbo and Patricia Colunga, researchers from the Yucatan Center of Scientific Research and Fernando González from the National Center of Anthropology and History successfully conducted experiments using replicas of pre-Hispanic vessels which showed that the distillation process may have been known in this area as long as 3500 years ago

Colunga-GarcíaMarín, P. and D. Zizumbo-Villarreal. 2007. Tequila and other Agave spirits from west-central Mexico: current germplasm diversity, conservation and origin. Biodiversity and Conservation 16 (6): 1653-1667. Published online 09 July 2006; doi: 10.1007/s10531-006-9031-z.

Colunga-GarcíaMarín, P., D. Zizumbo-Villarreal y J. Martínez-Torres. 2007. Tradiciones en el aprovechamiento de los agaves mexicanos: una aportación a la protección legal y conservación de su diversidad biológica y cultural. pp 229-248 + Anexo xxi-xxxviii. En: P. Colunga-García Marín, A. Larqué Saavedra, L. Eguiarte y D. Zizumbo-Villarreal (eds), En lo ancestral hay futuro: del tequila, los mezcales y otros agaves. CICY-CONACYT-CONABIO-INE. ISBN: 978-968-6532-18-0. 452 pp.

Vargas-Ponce O., D. Zizumbo-Villarreal, and P. Colunga-GarcíaMarín. 2007. In situ diversity and maintenance of traditional Agave landraces used in spirits production in West-Central Mexico. Economic Botany. 61(4) 362-375.

Vargas-Ponce, O., D. Zizumbo-Villarreal, J. Martínez-Castillo, J. Coello-Coello and P. Colunga-GarcíaMarín. 2009. Diversity and structure of landraces of Agave grown for spirits under traditional agriculture: A comparison with wild populations of A. angustifolia (Agavaceae) and A. tequilana commercial plantations. American Journal of Botany 96 (2): 448-457. Published online January 15, 2009, doi:10.3732/ajb.0800176

Zizumbo-Villarreal, D., F. González-Zozaya, A. Olay-Barrientos, R. Platas-Ruíz, M. Cuevas-Sagardi, L. Almendros-López, and P. Colunga-GarcíaMarín. 2009. Archaeological Evidence of the Cultural Importance of Agave spp. in Pre-Hispanic Colima, Mexico. Economic Botany 63(3): 288-302. Published online August 06, 2009. DOI 10.1007/s12231-009-9092-5

Zizumbo-Villarreal, D., F. González-Zozaya, A. Olay-Barrientos, L. Almendros-López, P. Flores-Pérez y P. Colunga-GarcíaMarín. 2009. Distillation in Western Mesoamerica Before European Contact. Economic Botany 63(4): 413-426. Published online December 01, 2009. DOI 10.1007/s12231-009-9103-6

Zizumbo-Villarreal, D., O. Vargas-Ponce, J. J. Rosales-Adame, and P. Colunga GarcíaMarín. 2013. Sustainability of the traditional management of Agave genetic resources in the elaboration of mezcal and tequila spirits in western Mexico. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 60: 33-47. Published online: March 02, 2012. DOI: 10.1007/s10722-012-9812-z