Sometimes it's heated and concentrated into a syrup to drizzle over pancakes or use in baked desserts, and it's often added as a sweetener to cocktails, tea, coffee, and fruit smoothies.

Waikulu Distillery owner Paul Turner stands in a Makawao field of blue agave plants Wednesday morning while describing the process of farming and distilling his premium agave spirit on Maui.

By KATRINA BRANDON HIDDEN away within the Gippsland hills is an agave americana (century or half-century plant) that only [..