r/Mezcal

Good morning, all,

Does anyone in NJ have any recommendations on where to find/source an authentic ancestral mezcal? Of course, there are dozens of online options, however, I’m wondering if there are any producer-owned bottles available somewhere near home.

TYIA

Any recommendations? Something under $40. What do you guys recommend?

1. Try cheap mass manufactured mezcal from sellout brands. Like the smoke especially in a cocktail.

2. Talk to someone who knows, friend bartender, reddit.

3. Learn what the heart of mezcal making is. Tradition, heritage, cultural identity.

4. Become overwhelmed with the cost of the good stuff, but eager to procure a big time bottle.

5. Either it hits and your hooked or you stay with the Montelobos of mezcal.

6. Pokemon mode. Gotta collect/try em all.

7. Learn your favorite maguey. And specific tasting notes.

8. Learn you like certain producers or regions.

9. Either buy like everything you see or push what you can afford.

10. Plan a trip to Oaxaca.

11. Become more selective. Know what you like what your selection is missing or what you want more of.

Where y'all at?

I've spent years working in global advocacy and narratives, so when I started learning about Sotol, one detail stopped me completely.

No manuals. No written recipes. No archives.

Eight hundred years of craft knowledge passed entirely through local hands, memory, and oral traditions. The Rarámuri and Toboso communities in northern Mexico didn't need documentation. They had something more durable: unbroken human transmission, generation after generation.

When the Spanish arrived and introduced distillation techniques, indigenous knowledge didn't disappear. It was absorbed, adapted, and continued. Quietly. Persistently.

What strikes me most is how fragile that chain is and how remarkable it is that it held.

We talk a lot about preserving culture. But most of what we call "preservation" is digitizing, archiving, cataloguing. What the Maestros who produce Sotol do is entirely different. The knowledge lives in their hands. Their memory is the archive.

I think about this constantly as someone who has worked in advocacy: what else have we almost lost without realizing it? And who are the people quietly holding it together?

Hey friends! I'm trying to put together a list of all the key mezcalerías and tasting rooms in Oaxaca. Did I get them all?

Feel free to add more to the spreadsheet or comment below. Thanks!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jf0PKQ1-zHiLBPEdCQJ_g9woBE4543cvKxZCWwJp-xs/edit?usp=sharing

Hi all,

Been slowly opening my palette to liquor (coming in from Rum and Tiki), and I'm discovering that my second favorite liquor is mezcal! I've tried a few of the basics at this point: Illegal, Banhez, Boval, Amada Luna (which I quite like, but apparently it only exists in Phoenix and Mexico, and I am nowhere near either)... lucky enough to have had a very limited batch Neta tasting a few months back. I've been told to avoid Vida, as it is like a smoke bomb, so I'll take that warning seriously.

Anyway, I'm wondering where the community thinks a newbie with an extra $100 (or so) should turn. I think I do like a smokier profile, but I'm open to other suggestions as well.

Is it possible to bring a bottle of mezcal with a snake inside of it to the US? Has anyone tried it? Should I declare it? Thanks-

Hey guys
I am travelling to USA for a business trip.
Can someone suggest me a good mezcal and which website i can buy it from.

Thanks in advance