Agave Mixtape: A Mezcal Subscription to Quench Your Thirst and Nostalgia
I’ve always thought that music and mezcal have parallels. My mezcal and record collection are similar in that each item on the shelf has personal meaning and when I pull something out to listen or sip I’m brought back to
Tres Colibrí Cooperative and small production mezcal
With the pandemic halting tourism and hospitality sales, many mezcalero/as are struggling. Maestra Sósima Olvera Aguilar had to move out of her bodega in Oaxaca city, and on top of that, while moving her truck was stolen. This vehicle was
Bacanora: Another great Mexican distilling tradition
My trip last year to Tucson’s Agave Heritage Festival was amazing for so many reasons but one of the most tasty was an in depth introduction to bacanora. Bacanora is a tiny mezcal appellation in the mountains of Sonora. Not
On the mezcal road in San Luis Potosi – Part 2
Part one of this two part series can be found here. La Ruta del Mezcal - Day 2 The next morning we were met by Miguel Angel of San Luis Autentico, a tour agency offering a variety of tours for any visit
On the mezcal road in San Luis Potosi – Part 1
This is the first part of a two part series. The second part can be found here. The first thing I noticed were the lack of topes (speed bumps) as we left the San Luis Potosi airport in our rental car.
Oaxaca in a box: The Maguey Melate project
Maguey Melate is a new idea on the mezcal scene, a subscription service for small batch mezcals that will get you some of those small batch mezcals that you can't find outside of Oaxaca delivered to your doorstep here in the US. but it’s so much more because the bottles come packaged in a beautiful wooden box with a special print and four cups. This could easily be your traveling drinking set but you’ll probably feel such a strong proprietary feeling for it that you’ll leave it at home on the shelf as that special show it off feature of your bar.
A very special tasting at Madre!
I had a chance to meet Ivan Vasquez, owner of Madre! at the recent Culver City screening of Agave: The Spirit of a Nation and arrange time for a visit while I was in Southern California for the week. It’s
Trending: The House Mezcal
There is irony here. For eons in Mexico at bars and restaurants, most carried house mezcales, note lower case and not Mezcales. Someone usually had a connection through family or friends and offered them in glass or plastic jugs behind
The San Antonio Cocktail Conference rundown
Just back from five days at the San Antonio Cocktail Conference - a fun and enlightening industry gathering that was simultaneously overwhelming and intimate. It was a great opportunity to connect with some of the key players in the industry
You buried my mezcal in shit?
In goat shit, to be precise. Take a look at the video below where Craft Distillers' Ansley Coale introduces Mezcalero Special #4 with the full story on how you pull great aging characteristics from mezcal. It's a blend of espadín and wild bicuixe but it's also aged for six months in a pile of goat shit which, he claims, contributes to the balance in the mezcal. That's a tradition that I've seen in Michoacan and always thought was just an easy way of keeping the mezcal out of people's hands and out of the light so that it could rest but Ansley mentions another potential factor, heat generated from the manure.