r/Mezcal

Part flex, part question. This is my mezcal haul from Oaxaca so far. Have been fortunate to buy some really great bottles and visit Berta Vasquez at her home. Feel like I have my bases covered but wanted to see from any experts if there seems to be anything I am missing, still have cinco sentidos tasting where I will try to restrain myself and only buy what i LOVE. Will list all bottles in caption.

Recently spent a few days in Austin and came back feeling grateful for how warmly the agave community welcomed us.

During the trip we released a collaborative batch with Las Perlas and Travis Heights Wine & Spirits: a Cuche & Coyote (A. convallis & A. americana ssp.) ensamble from Santa María Sola de Vega, Oaxaca.

Cuche is a maguey known locally for creating heavy foam during fermentation and distillation, making the process slower and more demanding. Coyote helped bring balance and structure to the batch.

We also spent time with the crew at Mezcalería Tobalá inside Whisler's. Good conversations, good people, and hopefully future collaborations ahead.

The last two photos are back home at our palenque during the second distillation in clay pots.

Also… Austin BBQ absolutely lived up to the hype.

Madre! Santa Clarita (Los Angeles).

Selection is INSANE.

Who else has had this and what are you using it in? I picked up a bottle of Alma Tepec today. I had my local spot, Noctis Spirit & Wine, order it for me. They are also the ones that turned me on to Zumbador Tequilas. I have been using Ancho Reyes. The Ancho Reyes is good, but the Alma Tepec is incredible! It has such a pure chili flavor! I use a lot of Ancho chili in my cooking so it is one of my top chilies. Pasilla is now surpassing it in my cooking. That could be my preference for the Pasilla flavor. I have lots of plans with the Alma Tepec. Want to incorporate it into a Margarita, Carajillo, Bloody Mary, and a Oaxacan Old Fashioned. I paid $40 with tax.

New piece on Mezcal Maniac covering a trip my wife and I took to the Morelia area. Visited the vinatas of Jorge Pérez and Isidro Rodriguez Montoya — the latter being a primary producer for Mal Bien. Wooden Filipino-style stills, more agave Inaequidens than you can shake a stick at, and a pechuga made with trout, duck and fighting rooster. Link in comments.

To my fellow mezcal enthusiasts:
I have been postponing writing these memories for three years now. Apparently, the best time to do it is precisely at the worst time. I’ve just had my first child and found that late-night shifts taking care of her are full of Instagram doom-scrolling and Reddit rabbit hole hunting. Between the quiet hum of the white noise and the exhaustion, free late-night hours have just opened up. If you guys do the math, she is two now. It’s funny how a toddler’s sleep schedule can finally grant a man the silence needed to look back at his own life.

I’ve partnered with one of my best friends and we have planted, so far, 54 acres of Agave Espadín. For now, I will try to keep our identities undisclosed; Mexico can be a dangerous place, particularly Michoacán. So far, this is our story.

Chapter 1: From Paper to Plant
2021 had just started. At the same time the COVID-19 Omicron variant was booming, tequila was too. All over the Mexican news, people were excited about how tequila was about to overcome whiskey consumption in the U.S. This seems pretty plausible now, but decades ago, tequila wasn’t #1, nor #3—not even in Mexico! People saw tequila as a low-quality, low-price spirit because that is exactly what it was. Awful Añejos were everywhere; the go-to flavors back then were woody reflux and dry, dry tannins. Or both! (Thank you, Don Julio and Siete Leguas, for offering quality Tequila Joven before we even knew we wanted it).

A lot of us Mexicans migrated, or rather, matured from tequila to mezcal. That’s what we expected to happen in the U.S. also—or at least, that’s what I hope. I, along with hundreds, maybe thousands of entrepreneurs, landowners, farmers, and distillers, are hoping for the same. One big problem: there’s too many of us. A gold rush in a land where the gold takes at least seven years to grow. We are all betting on a future that is still maturing under the sun. But that’s for another chapter.

With this in mind, I called my former roommate, one of mezcal's early adopters and a lover of funky tastes. He used to bring to our college apartment some underground Cupreata mezcal paired with some of the stinkiest and most delicious aged Cotija cheese you will ever find. The smell was so intense we kept the aged and ultra-dry cheese inside a plastic bag, inside a Tupperware, outside on our balcony. That balcony was our first tasting room, and that stinky cheese was our initiation rite. That pungent aroma and the smoke of the Cupreata became the soundtrack of our early twenties.

So I called him: "Hey man, let’s get into the mezcal business."
He just said to me: "I’m already starting. We need the plants in the ground before the first rains of the year (late May). I’m flying to Oaxaca this weekend to try to get some plants. Join me."
This was February. The clock was already ticking, and the soil was waiting.

I will upload the next chapter sometime next week. Thank you for reading.

I enjoy mezcal but don't know as much about it as I do with bourbon. Looking to pick up a bottle for a friend of mine's birthday, but there's not a great selection here. Curious if any of these are decent picks or if I should keep hunting.

I loved 400 Conejos because I liked the flavor, but then I saw Jose Cuervo owned it and felt basic. How do we feel about Banhez? I usually shop until the 30-45 range and I like the flavor on this one.

Anything good you see? I have a bottle of Marca Negra and the Vida de Muertos at home. I’ve tried the yellow Bozal bottle and didn’t care for it tbh. I really like the smokey notes of Madre 🤔