The Desert’s Alchemist: Gerardo Ruelas and the Spirit of Casa Lotos Sotol

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In Aldama, Chihuahua, Casa Lotos’s solar-powered distillery hums quietly beneath a pale, relentless sky. The desert isn’t kind, but it rewards patience. Limestone dust moves through the air like smoke, settling over thornbrush and low hills that shimmer in the afternoon heat — a terrain that sits nearly 4,000 feet above sea level, and can change on a whim.

Somewhere beyond the blur of the hills, a pickup growls awake. Gerardo Ruelas has driven these roads for most of his life — through cold dawns, punctured tires, and the thin air of the Chihuahuan plateau. These days, the routes are the same, but the purpose is different: to guide Casa Lotos into a future his father could only imagine.

He was only fifteen when his father handed him the keys to the viñata (the local term for a sotol distillery). The stills were copper and the nights were long. “Heat and cold don’t matter,” Gerardo says. “You have to watch the still.” Back then, he’d drive through the dark to check the fires, splitting wood with a chainsaw and patching tires in the freezing air. What began as survival became devotion — now embodied in every bottle of Casa Lotos, shaped by the desert and decades of resolve.

Gerardo comes from four generations of sotoleros (master distillers who produce sotol), a family that helped legalize the production of sotol in Chihuahua in the 1930s. Their distillery stood in Aldama long before the idea of sustainability or solar power ever entered the conversation. Yet those early lessons, passed down from his father and generations of the Ruelas family, became the foundation of Casa Lotos and their mission to preserve the desert’s balance while letting the spirit of the plant shine through.

Today, Gerardo stands at the precipice of a new era for sotol — a spirit poised to follow mezcal’s path from regional secret to international stage. His family’s methods endure, and Casa Lotos has become a laboratory for sustainability, powered by solar energy and grounded in respect for the land. 

I joined Nakhra’s founder, Nishka Dhawan, in conversation with Gerardo to talk about the desert that raised him, the spirit that defines him, and what it means to carry a legacy into the modern world. Our hope? To introduce this spirit to the wider world, and eventually, give it the same importance that mezcal and tequila have in India.

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What was your first encounter with sotol?

Gerardo Ruelas: Since I was born — all the time. My father had a little room in the house where he bottled and did all the work. When we were little, my mother would put sotol on our gums when our teeth were growing, because she said it made them stronger. I remember throwing the sotol heads into the oven so they could cook. When my father was watching the second distillation, he would put me on a small wooden box beside the still so I could sleep while he worked through the night.

That’s so special.

Gerardo Ruelas: In 1994, I left school. In 1997, my father gave me the job — he put me in charge of the sotol. I was 14 or 15. I drove the truck to pick up the harvest, used the chainsaw to cut the wood for the ovens, and did everything myself. Sometimes we started new batches at three in the morning. It was very cold — my hands would freeze, and the truck wasn’t in great shape. The air came in through the doors. Sometimes the tires would go flat, so I had to fix them on the road. Heat and cold didn’t matter — you have to watch the still.

Tell us about the land and how it shapes sotol.

Gerardo Ruelas: The plant grows only in very special microclimates. The sun must be right on top of the earth all the time. The soil has to be calizo — limestone — with calcium, like marble. That kind of terrain controls the pH and helps the plant grow strong. Sotol from the highlands tastes more like pine or eucalyptus, but mine is from the desert — it’s more mineral and herbal.

Casa Lotos is known for its sustainable methods. How do the solar panels fit into the process?

Gerardo Ruelas: In the desert it’s very difficult to get wood. With solar power, there’s no deforestation and no CO₂ emission. The flavor is also cleaner — the plant shines through more because it’s not hidden in the smoke. Using electricity helps control the temperature, so there aren’t big peaks of heat, and that changes the profile a lot.

What’s the most important part of distilling sotol?

Gerardo Ruelas: Temperature control. In cooking, time is most important. In distillation, it’s temperature. If you overcook the plants, they burn, and that affects everything. The first and second distillations also matter — if you go too fast, you lose flavor.

How do you prefer to drink sotol?

Gerardo Ruelas: It depends. Some people like it neat, some in cocktails. It’s good to taste it alone first, to understand it. But I love cocktails. I cook and make macerations — I like to play with flavors. Bartenders are artists. They do amazing work.

Where do you see sotol going next?

Gerardo Ruelas: I think sotol will be the next big Mexican spirit after tequila and mezcal. The world is starting to know that there’s this other spirit from the desert.

What does sotol taste like to you?

Gerardo Ruelas: It has no comparison to tequila or mezcal. Sotol is sweeter and less aggressive. Desert sotol is a little mineral, a little herbal — sweet, mineral, herbal.

Anything else you’d like people to know?

Gerardo Ruelas: People need to try sotol, so they can see what it’s really about — and fall in love with the Chihuahuan desert.

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Interview has been edited for length and clarity