Doug Smith's Biography

Doug Smith, an Arizona native, is an owner of Exo Roast Co. in Tucson.  He earned a Ph.D. in Cultural and Social Anthropology from Stanford University, conducting major investigations into agricultural history in several states in Mexico. He taught Anthropology for ten years in several universities, finishing as an Associate Professor at Western Oregon University.  He returned to Arizona in 2008 to begin Exo’s coffee roastery. His first experience with mezcal, during a riotous fiesta patronal in a village in Guerrero, initiated a long engagement with cultures of agave.  Exo’s mezcaleria, which opened in 2017, aims not only to introduce guests to mezcal, but to educate people on the spirit, its production, and its cultural history.  Many recent research trips to Sonora have put Doug into contact with Bacanora and Lechuguilla makers in the Rio Sonora and Rio Moctezuma valleys.  He sits also on the Board of Directors of Native Seeds/SEARCH, and his current interest is to explore agave cultures in Arizona-Sonora and reestablish substantive relationships between people and the plant.