Some stories begin with intention; others with serendipity. When Lobo built an oversized oven meant for barbacoa, fate had other plans. A chance encounter with an agave farmer, who wanted to use the oven to cook agave and distill it into raicilla, transformed Lobo, a free-spirited restaurateur’s son, into one of Mexico’s most enigmatic distillers. Faced with a mysterious illness that threatened to end his relationship with spirits, Lobo instead embarked on a quest to create the purest, most natural distillates imaginable. Now, joined by his wife Rafaela, he crafts each batch of Charanda with the precision of a scientist and the soul of a poet.