How a Canadian Bartender Built a Zero-Proof Mezcal Brand Out of a Garage in Oaxaca

(Photos: Tomonotomo)

Alongside diet soda and Beyond Meat, nonalcoholic spirits belong in one of those odd consumer categories defined not by what they contain, but by what they lack. After all, what is zero-proof whiskey if not the precise opposite of grain liquor? And what differentiates a boozeless margarita from a splash of lime juice and orange minus the tequila?

Though the nonalcoholic industry has evolved into a billion-dollar behemoth over the past couple of years, you’d be hard pressed to get a straight answer to any of the above questions. Unlike traditional alcohol, which is subject to countless federal guidelines, designation of origin protections and labeling procedures, the absence of alcohol is an inherent wild west. There is simply no rulebook. Some brands have tackled the concept with adaptogens like L-theanine and lion’s mane; others with THC and CBD; others more with botanicals, mushrooms and tree bark. More often than not, a chemical mixture of puzzling compounds is deployed to imitate the “real” thing.

For example’s sake, we grabbed a bottle of one of the most popular zero-proof tequilas currently available in the U.S. Its ingredients list: filtered water, natural flavors, cane sugar, citric acid, xanthan gum, salt, caramel color, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate.

For the average drinker (ourselves included), words like these are about as helpful as a broken clock. Tomonotomo founder Amanda Chen imagines a different way forward.

Made from tobalá agaves that are roasted, fermented and distilled in the heart of Oaxaca, Mexico, Tomonotomo is a bona fide nonalcoholic product that boasts nearly all of the same hallmarks as that state’s most famous export, mezcal. Following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Chen is now rolling out bottles to the public. Easier said than done. Chen’s vision will require a hell of a lot of education, a good deal of patience and help from a proprietary distilling operation based out of her garage.

We sat down with Chen to learn every detail.

“Every year, it matters less and less if you’re totally sober, you drink or wherever else on that spectrum you fall inbetween. It doesn’t matter anymore,” Chen told us. “People are just looking for brands that taste good. Brands they admire and respect. People are looking for authenticity in craft, as opposed to an alternative.”

It’s All in the Agave

Chen was born and raised in Toronto, where her passion for bartending paved the way for a business making flavored cocktail salts. She started teaching mixology classes as a synergistic means to promote her product. All was going well — especially once the 2020 stay-at-home orders hit and everyone was eager for a new pastime. Chen transitioned to virtual classes with great success but says a certain allure was lost in the process.

In search of that missing magic that all of us can relate to from the early COVID-19 era, Chen traveled to Mexico for a 10-day silent meditation retreat. No alcohol, no coffee, no meat. She describes it as a watershed moment, convincing her to go sober and vegan without ever looking back. From there, she made her way to Oaxaca with unexpected motivations for a new venture.

“The first year I went sober, I was working with a ton of nonalcoholic brands. And, to be honest, I wasn’t happy with what I was making. It was drinkable, but it wasn’t showstopping; people never ordered a second round. Of course, I wanted to support nonalcoholic tequila brands, but none of them had agave. It was just agave flavoring: the ‘Flavor of Jalisco’ or something like that.”

Oaxaca — home to 85% of commercially available mezcal production — had all the right ingredients for a different take on the concept. Chen says she was committed to living, working and creating there. “So why not make something that I would actually drink?”

The idea evolved into a two-year journey, oftentimes made literally uphill. In sharp contrast to the industrial-grade tequila distilleries of Jalisco, the landscape of Oaxaca is defined by family-owned palenques dotted throughout its many mountains and valleys. Chen says she spent month after month knocking on doors as she pitched the outline of Tomonotomo. From her account, she was greeted mostly with raised eyebrows.

The recipe eventually coalesced around tobalá agaves, a wild-grown varietal exclusive to the region. Renowned for its fruity, delicately floral flavor profile, tobalá is a great deal rarer to find inside mezcal than its widely available counterpart, agave espadin. Inside a zero-proof mezcal, tobalá is completely unheard of. But Chen says the science spoke for itself.

“Since espadin is rich in sugar, it makes plenty of alcohol — great for anyone distilling mezcal,” Chen said. “But tobalá has less than half the sugar content, taking a mezcalero double the amount of tobalá to make the same amount of liquor. For my purposes, I’ll just take double the tobalá and make double the liquid, because it’s not sugar I’m after.” 

The brand’s current recipe sources its agaves from six palenques dotted throughout the area. Mezcaleros trek the mountains harvesting plants, trim them to their piñas and roast the agaves in underground pits. Most are distilled into conventional, thoroughly alcoholic mezcal; a small portion is reserved for Chen’s purposes.

This is where the “mad scientist” angle of Tomonotomo begins to take shape. Inside Chen’s Oaxaca City garage is a custom-built copper still, sometimes pictured in photos with a couple of dogs darting around in the background. Much like in gin distillation, the setup is equipped with a third pot for botanicals that would otherwise be burned under high heat. Into the apparatus Chen tosses locally harvested ingredients like ginger, flor de cacao, basil, black cardamom, rose petals, lemongrass, cloves and smoked pineapple. The process is vaguely reminiscent of mezcal de pechuga, a tradition in which seasonal grains and produce are tossed directly into the still for an added wallop of flavor. The main difference is that pechugas usually also include a giant dangling slab of raw chicken or turkey.

Chen confesses that the operation has taken some getting used to. Up until recently, she was more accustomed to pouring drinks than pouring out vats. Handling spiky agaves with gloves was a learning curve, as was the question of what to do with those agaves once the liquid was made.

“We’re up at 4 a.m. doing these distillations. We even have this massive trident pitchfork that we use to pull out the agaves. It’s all us, end to end: sourcing the materials, putting it in the pot, distilling, collecting the liquid, cleaning, taking everything to an organic waste area. We have some friends who take the spent agaves and make paper or furniture out of it. Everything’s cyclical.” 

What comes out of the still is a genre bender halfway between alternative mezcal and gin, brimming with a botanical-forward character at home within negronis, spiced margaritas and the wayward martini. Despite its humble origins, the recipe has quickly picked up the right kind of attention. In 2024, Tomonotomo won Non-Alc Agave of the Year at the International Non-Alcoholic Competition and clinched BevNet’s Best NA Spirit. Illegal Mezcal co-founder Stephen Meyers calls it the “next evolution of non-alc beverages […] with a gorgeous aroma that takes you straight to the sun-drenched hills of Oaxaca.”

Last (but certainly not least) comes the name itself. One that Chen says informs the ethos not only of Tomonotomo, but of the zero-proof movement at large.

“The first year I was living in Oaxaca, I was learning about the culture of mezcal. And everyone here has a mezcal. Your taxi driver has a mezcal, the laundromat has a mezcal. Everyone has their bottle and it’s customary for them to invite you to try. So I’d always have to say, “no gracias” — “no tomo.” [Spanish for “I don’t drink.”] 

Not wanting to start her brand name with a negative, Chen settled on Tomonotomo, literally, “I drink, I don’t drink.” It’s a cheeky oxymoron hinting at the exact attitude propelling nonalcoholic spirits the world over. The kind of drinker who starts February with a bar crawl after swearing off liquor the previous month; someone decades deep into sobriety in search of a familiar flavor minus the buzz; the compounding paradox that is zero-proof alcohol. But maybe every question doesn’t need such a neat answer.

“It’s a more inclusive way of talking about drinking, it doesn’t mean you’re not going to participate. It’s a reintroduction to enjoying and socializing. It doesn’t have to be a negative experience or something you ‘used to’ have. You can have everything with the options available today.”

If you’re interested in learning more about Chen’s product and story, find the Tomonotomo website here.