Send us Fan Mail In this episode I sit down with Monica Leyva, the artist and entrepreneur behind Ponche Pajarote and co-founder of Mezcales Mezonte, for a conversation about family, heritage, creativity, and traditional Mexican spirits. She talks about her early path as an artist, her studies in communication and branding, and how those skills eventually helped shape the visual identity of her projects. Before Pajarote, Monica spent time in Spain and London, where she learned about wine, hospitality, and the social culture around drinks. Those experiences helped form her appreciation for slow, intentional production and the role spirits play in everyday life. The conversation then moves into the origin of Ponche Pajarote. Monica explains how she began experimenting with traditional ponche recipes, eventually turning them into a small but growing line of liqueurs made with real fruit, cane spirit, piloncillo, and no artificial ingredients. She describes the importance of patience, balance, and freshness in the process, as well as the challenges of working with ingredients like tamarind and guava at scale. Lastly, Monica and I also discuss Mezonte, the project she built with Pedro Jiménez to support traditional mezcal producers and preserve the culture around agave spirits. Monica explains how their work with producers, tastings, and community built not only a business, but a lasting cultural mission. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monica Leyva is the founder of Ponche Pajarote, a Mexican liqueur brand rooted in the traditional ponche recipes of her grandmother Celfa, blended with the artistic sensibility passed down from her other grandmother, Gertrudis who is also known artistically as "Dix." Trained as an artist rather than a distiller, Monica launched Pajarote in 2001, hand-crafting liqueurs like tamarind, chocolate, guava, ginger, and clove & cardamom using traditional cane distillate and piloncillo. She's also one of the founding figures behind Mezonte, the Guadalajara-based agave spirits organization she helped build alongside former partner Pedro Jimenez, and together they opened Pare de Sufrir, one of Mexico's most celebrated mezcal bars, in 2009. Find her on Instagram @monicaleyva @monicaleyvaarchivo ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Production: Tyson Ellert Productions Music: Macabe @macabemusic
