Crafting mezcal is what Romulo “Modesto” Cruz lives for, and it’s been his life for 53 years. The 67-year-old man of Santa Ana, Oaxaca, Mexico, makes one of the most popular mixes of mezcal in his small town, selling hundreds of liters of the drink in any given week. “We all have professions, but I live from this,” Cruz said. “I was working a lot, suffering a lot, so I started working with maguey to rise from it.” A recent spike in popularity has led to higher levels of production of mezcal, and like the farmers who grow the quickly disappearing plant, the mezcal makers are hurting. The lack of the maguey plant used to make the drink has increased prices, and now the drink which sold for just 20 pesos 10 years ago now costs locals five times more. Nick Wagner/HERALD