Godspell-A Borderland Gin with Soul

FRONTeras Magazine 2025 Vol.1 No.1 Issue

Leonardo Sánchez Espinoza never set out to become a gin maker. Born in Mexico City, he built his career in steel-running a plant in San Luis Potosí for sixteen years that supplied oil pipelines to Petróleos Mexicanos. He's one of six siblings and still visits often-his parents remain in the same neighborhood where he grew up.

But in 2018, everything changed. A conversation with business partners Eduardo Ocampo and Enrique Dutilly sparked something else: a plan to create a small-batch spirits company called Ancestral Craft Spirits. The first project was an agave distillate called Blasfemus. The second was a gin unlike anything the Rio Grande Valley had seen.

Most people are used to London Dry-the kind of gin that leans heavy on juniper and pine. This one reimagines it with something warmer, deeper, and rooted in the borderlands.

Crafted in Roma, Texas, the gin was developed by Leonardo and his oldest son, also named Leonardo, a chef in San Antonio. What began as an experiment during COVID in 2019, while still refining the Blasfemus recipe, quickly became its own creation. Using agave juice from San Luis Potosí and a tiny three-liter copper still, father and son developed the first batch of what would become Godspell Marigold.

Leonardo, now 52, has three children: his son and twin daughters, Andrea and Daniela, who live in San Antonio. Family remains a central thread in everything he builds-even in the gin.

After dozens of trial runs, they finally perfected the recipe-refining the balance of agave and botanicals until it matched the vision they'd imagined from the start.

Marigolds are known as cempasúchil in Spanish, from the Nahuatl word cempöhualöchitl, meaning "twenty-flower." In Mexican tradition, especially around Día de los Muertos, they're also called flor de muerto. The smell hits first. Then the color. Then whatever memory comes with it.

Godspell has since expanded into three distinct expressions: Marigold, Lavender, and Bugambilia-each infused with bold botanicals and a deep sense of place. That place, as it turns out, wasn't random. It was personal.

Leonardo wasn't born in Roma, but it's become home. The town offered more than space to distill-it offered land, history, and legacy.

Through Eduardo's family, he discovered roots in Roma that ran generations deep. Pablo Ramírez, Eduardo's great-great-great-grandfather, once owned the land that is now part of the J.C. Ramirez ranch. In 1884, La Casa Rosa-the striking pink house on the plaza-was built for Pablo by architect Heinrich Portscheller. That kind of history grounded the project. It wasn't just about producing a bottle. It was about planting something meaningful on borderland soil.

"Now, Roma is part of me, and I love Roma," Leonardo says. "I have so much passion for what I'm doing right now. I'm so blessed to be able to do something with the Manuel Guerra Store."

Production has scaled up since those first small batches. Today, the gin is distilled in Roma using an 80-gallon copper still, still made with agave juice sourced from San Luis Potosí. It's hand-crafted, distinct, and intentionally regional.

You'll now find Godspell popping up in bars, tastings, and word-of-mouth circles across San Antonio and Dallas. Signature drinks include a cucumber martini and a strawberry lemon drop, but Leonardo prefers to keep it simple-just gin, ice, and a slice of citrus.

"People think gin has to taste like what they've always known," he says. "But this is different. This is ours. It's from Roma. It has agave.

It has soul."

@Santitos

@salinasmariasantos

Copyright © 2025 Maria Santos Salinas for FRONTeras.

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