Grana Cochinilla:

Ancient cochineal.

Unapologetically blood red.

THE SIGNATURE RED

VIVAROSE is finished, abocado in the traditional language of mezcal, with grana cochinilla. The mezcal rests with the cochineal for several weeks, slowly taking on its color: a vivid, electric red in our classic expression, and a deeper, more intense red in our premium, darkened by its six months of rest in oak. It is the only thing added to the agave, and it is the most Oaxacan ingredient imaginable: the color is the history, and the history is the name.

What is Grana Cochinilla?

Grana cochinilla is the cochineal, a tiny insect that lives on the paddles of the nopal cactus. Harvested and dried by hand, it yields carmine, the most intense natural red ever discovered. It takes tens of thousands of insects to produce a single kilogram of pigment, which is why for centuries it was treated like treasure.

Before it colors VIVAROSE Mezcal, the grana cochinilla is ground by hand on a metate, the same volcanic stone Oaxacans have used for centuries, until it gives up its blood red.

Its History in Oaxaca

Long before the Spanish arrived, the Zapotec and Mixtec peoples of Oaxaca were farming it, and the Aztec empire collected it as tribute. Its red colored their textiles and painted pages of their codices. After the conquest, it crossed the Atlantic as one of New Spain’s most valuable exports, second only to silver, and went on to color the robes of cardinals, the red coats of the British Army, and the canvasses of Rubens, Renoir, and Van Gogh.

Grana Cochinilla is the Red that dyed the World.

That legacy lives on today.