Objective:

Analyze some of the most significant productive transformations in the mezcal chain in Mexico between the 20th and 21st centuries.

Methodology:

After reviewing scientific literature on the subject, a fourteen-month field research was conducted over nine years using different research methods (interviews, participant observation and ethnography). About thirty-five interviews were conducted with producers in situ. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, about ten other interviews were conducted via Zoom or telephone with the scholars responsible to provide the training programs also called "technical assistance". On-site interviews were also conducted with about forty persons who visited a craft distillery.

Results:

The impact of technical assistance on traditional production was clearly identified. The implementation of scientific recommendations largely explains its current success in the global market.

Limitations:

This research is limited to scholars that provided the training courses, since producers are reticent, reserved or evasive on this issue.

Conclusions:

After two unsuccessful attempts, the results of the third modernization were extremely favorable. The recommendations proposed had positive impacts on quality, both sanitary and organoleptic. Nevertheless, their adoption also produced two collateral effects: the dissimulation of scientific contribution and the modernization of tradition.