Mezcal Magic in Oaxaca

Bienvenidos from Oaxaca, spirits enthusiasts! Fresh from my tequila adventure in Jalisco, I've traveled south to explore tequila's wilder, smokier cousin: mezcal. If tequila is the well-behaved agave drink that shows up to dinner parties, mezcal is the mysterious artist who lives in the mountains and makes things by hand. This trip got personal again—more agave relatives giving their lives for the cause—but I've made peace with it. They died doing what they were destined to do: become delicious.

Unlike tequila, which can only be made from blue agave, mezcal can be made from over 30 different agave varieties, each with its own personality. In the hills outside Oaxaca City, I visited a family palenque (distillery) where they use espadín agave, the most common variety. The process is beautifully primitive: the agave hearts are roasted in an underground pit lined with volcanic rocks, giving mezcal its distinctive smokiness. It's like the agave went camping before becoming alcohol. The smoke is in its soul.

The mezcalero, Don Celestino, has been making mezcal for forty years using the exact same methods his father and grandfather used. No electricity, no modern equipment—just fire, stone, and time. He showed me the tahona, a massive stone wheel pulled by a horse to crush the roasted agave. The mash ferments in wooden vats with wild yeast from the air. Then it's distilled twice in clay pots over open fire. The result is mezcal that tastes like nothing from a commercial distillery—smoky, yes, but also floral, fruity, almost savory. It tastes like the mountain it came from.

The tasting ritual in Oaxaca is sacred. You don't shoot mezcal. You kiss it. Seriously—they taught me to bring the cup to my lips, inhale deeply, then take a small sip, swishing it around before swallowing. Good mezcal should be smooth, not harsh. "If it burns, it's not mezcal, it's alcohol," Don Celestino said. The mezcal he poured me didn't burn at all. It warmed. It glowed. It made me want to write poetry about agave and smoke and mountain air. I attempted a poem. It was terrible. The mezcal was not.

The most extraordinary mezcal I tried was made from tobalá, a wild agave that only grows in the shade of oak trees on steep mountainsides. It takes 12-15 years to mature—twice as long as espadín—and can't be cultivated, only harvested wild. The mezcalero has to hike hours into the mountains to find it. The resulting spirit was unlike anything: delicate, complex, with flavors I can only describe as "green" and "mineral" and "absolute magic." A single bottle takes years of waiting and days of labor. When I learned the price, I understood. When I tasted it, I understood even more.

If you want to explore Oaxacan mezcal, skip the tourist bars with their twenty-flavor menus and find a palenque to visit instead. See the process. Meet the maker. Understand that each bottle represents years of patience and generations of knowledge. And when you drink it, drink slowly, with respect. Mezcal isn't about getting drunk; it's about connection—to place, to tradition, to the agave that sacrificed everything to become something extraordinary. Para todo mal, mezcal. Para todo bien, también. (For everything bad, mezcal. For everything good, too.) 🌵🥃🇲🇽