Guiseppe Alarćon

Elsita graciously tells me that Giuseppe is a Mexican national with dual passports and a singular mission she describes as "Le gusta hacer hombres graciosos" - "he likes to make funny guys." We sip tequila slowly and rock even more slowly in upholstered chairs overlooking a burnt-orange sunset. My bloody knees are officially numb.

I learn that Giuseppe lives among the agaves outside Michoacán, on what some quietly call a "farm with firearms." He rises with the light to walk the rows before the heat arrives, moving with the patience of a fourth-generation tequila family. "You don't learn to make tequila," Elsita says. "You watch."

Somewhere between harvesting and waiting, Giuseppe peddles his paintings around town. Quietly. Elsita calls him charming, reserved, and "sneaky funny", which, it turns out, is also a perfect description of his work: precise, strange, unexpectedly tender.