Need to know
Rooms
Six one-bedroom suites.
Check–Out
Noon; earliest check-in, 3pm. Both are flexible subject to availability and a fee of $75 each, excluding food and drink. Guests arriving ahead of check-in from noon are welcome to have lunch.
More details
Rates include breakfast, lunch and dinner, most drinks (excluding wine, cocktails and special-edition mezcals), plus a tour of the distillery and mezcal tasting.
Also
Unfortunately this rural distillery stay is not suitable for guests with mobility issues.
At the hotel
Mezcal distillery, gardens, outdoor fire pits, shop, and library. In rooms: free WiFi, Bose speaker, bathrobes and slippers, free bottled water, and L’Occitane bath products.
Our favourite rooms
Four of Casa Silencio’s six suites are on two levels and are distinguishable by their art rather than layout, although Sol has a mezzanine bedroom and loftier living room, with a bathroom that’s integrated into the hotel’s courtyard tower. Of the two single-storey suites, we love the romance of Tierra with its open-plan layout and antique bath tub; although smallest-of-the-bunch, Aire impresses with a glass-walled bedroom that has incredible vistas on three sides.
Poolside
All six suites open onto a courtyard in the grounds where you’ll find a raised-edge square plunge pool – ideal for refreshing dips rather than swimming – open from 8am until 7pm (heated and chlorinated).
Spa
Casa Silencio has teamed up with the spa at Hotel Casa Regina (a short drive away), where there’s a temazcal sweat lodge, and there’s no need to leave the grounds for an in-room massage treatment or yoga session (available with notice).
Packing tips
Simply cut slub linens and hemp pieces to match the textural drama of your surroundings. On a practical note, you may want to channel Indiana Jones for hikes into the sierra, cave visits and archaeological tours.
Also
The hotel’s speakeasy bar, Rhino, is a tucked-away den, which you can book for a private candle-lit dinner (at extra cost).
Children
As you’d expect from a hotel with its own distillery, Casa Silencio is an adults-only stay.
Sustainability efforts
Despite the desert locale, Casa Silencio is green from its foundations all the way to its day-to-day practices. It was built using local tapial techniques (with compacted clay walls), and 90 per cent of the wood used in construction and for custom furniture is reclaimed, including some from the build’s scaffolding that was upcycled at a later stage. The architecture is modular, so that there was not only a low impact on this Oaxacan stay’s surroundings but minimal waste. The hotel has reduced its energy consumption with solar panels, as well as clever use of natural light, and its earthen construction provides naturally energy-efficient insulation. Then there are the two eye-catching towers, which are made from recycled glass mezcal bottles. The distillery, too, is an environmental pioneer, using a solar-powered mechanical mill to crush its agave, and limiting water consumption with reuse and rain-harvesting. And the hotel uses bio-digesters to treat its waste. The hotel’s ties with the local community are also robust. Many of Casa Silencio’s contemporary furnishings were hand-crafted within an hour’s radius of the casa. And other suppliers are local where possible, bolstered by produce from the hotel orchard and gardens. With zero-food-miles mezcal on offer, too, there’s plenty to raise a glass to…