It was close to 14 years ago that I found myself fighting motion sickness in the back of a stuffy van as it hurled over a twisting mountain road north of Huatulco. Nearly 1,000 miles south of the nearest US border town, we were deep, deep in remote Mexico. Ahead of us was an old, dilapidated pick up truck struggling to maintain speed on the steep, rough road. In its bed was a large oak barrel that rolled from side to side, doing my nausea no favors. "What's that?" I asked the driver. "Mezcal."
If course it was. The hardscrabble hills of Oaxaca we were swerving through are, after all, where the majority of the world's mezcal comes from.
For the next few days I peppered cab drivers and shopkeepers with the same question: "What's the best mezcal I should try?" The sentiment of the replies was more or less uniform and unexpected: "Why would you want to do that to yourself?" Mezcal seemed to have a reputation as a dangerous, mystical drink capable of turning decent people into raving lunatics. As one cabbie told me, "If you have one, you feel good. If you have two, you're drunk. But if you have three, you turn into a ghost."
Little did I know at the time, but much of the mezcal produced in this impoverished area is homemade. (Read: lacking in process controls, hygiene, etc. and yielding unpredictable outcomes.) No wonder the hesitation.
Undeterred, I finally secured the name of a brand I should ask for, which I did after a dinner out one evening and much to the amusement of our waiter. In retrospect, the fact that Tres Oros mezcal was rot gut of the first order probably had more to do with the limited options in that poor town than any reflection of what drinking pleasures mezcal could offer. Sitting somewhere between formaldehyde and ethanol, that shot both explained the warnings I'd been given and my decade-long hiatus from agave spirits that followed.
That all changed during the pandemic when I met (virtually) Chris Hampson, partner in Xicaru. (Check out this summary of the primer Chris gave me on how mezcal's made.) Since then, mezcal has proven to be one of the most experimentation-rewarding categories of spirits. So, when I came across a couple of unfamiliar examples in Jalisco last week, I couldn't wait to dive in.
The vast majority of mezcal is made from the espadin variety of the agave plant, but different species like tobala, arroqueño and others are sometimes used, too. A tiny cafe in this dusty beach town offered just two adult beverages - both mezcals, and both with hand-written labels. I was intrigued. The first was an espadin derivative with the artesanal designation bottled in clear glass, while the other was made from the papalome variety of agave (aka cupreata) carrying the unusual ancestral designation and bottled in a dark brown bottle that you'd expect to find castor oil in. Ancestral refers to rules governing the way it's made, and is the most strict and traditional method, requiring, among other things, that distillation happen in clay pot stills.
A measly 50 pesos (less than US$2.50 at the time) bought me a one ounce pour. The espadin was well-made, soulful, and delicious. But the papalome was next level character and sublime. These tastes were enjoyed on different nights, and I'm grateful for that, as well as opting for the modest portions. Though I was in no danger of turning into a ghost, my dreams those nights definitely took on a psychoactive quality. That's never been my experience with any mezcal purchased in the US, so perhaps it was the entourage effects of what must be miniscule productions.
Either way, the experience serves as a reminder that exploration of shadowy corners can reveal bright discoveries. Thankfully, more and more atypical mezcals are making their way north of the border as this spirit continues to enjoy a renaissance. Happy hunting!
