For our very first tasting, we’ve picked 4 entry level Espadín to compare and contrast. We’ve purposely selected brands that are a little more readily available so that when you see them on the shelf at your local liquor store (or hopefully someday soon on the back bar at your favorite haunt) you’ll know what you like.
If you’ve never gone through a formal liquor tasting before, let me point out a few things: 1) This is not formal in any way. 2) When tasting a collection of the same thing, it can be hard to find the words to differentiate them. 3) There are no wrong answers.
I remember one of my first ever wine tastings, we all took sips from the current pour being passed around the room. The teacher asked the class what we tasted. There was the usual moment of silence as no one wants to say something completely ridiculous... Then someone spoke up: “It tastes like grapes.” And it did! Wine is just grape juice after all. While we’ll use descriptors that border on the ridiculous like blueberry sharpie, fresh cut garden hose, watermelon sour patch kid—that is just what your brain is telling you based on all the sensory memories its ever had. Who cares what it tastes like ultimately—that you enjoy it is what matters.
In our world where food scientists create chemical compounds that we label as “natural flavor,” Mezcal is as elemental as it gets. Someone essentially grew vegetables, roasted them in the ground, then fermented them in the open air to get the beguiling elixir you hold in your glass. While Mezcal is all at once mythical, medicinal and magical, it is just plant juice. ;)
MEZCAL #1: VICIO
This one has a bit of a local tie in for us in the Philadelphia area. Vicio was founded by Rosemarie Certo and Marilyn Candeloro who have the Philly-famous Dock Street Brewery. There’s follows a theme that you’ll notice in a lot of the backstories we discuss behind the brands and producers we feature: They traveled to Oaxaca, they drank from the Mezcal still, and became slightly obsessed (possessed?) by this intoxicating spirit.
Maestro: Salvador Gonzalez
Origen: Oaxaca, MEX
Agave: Espadín
Fermentation: Open air. 5 days. Natural Yeast.
ABV: 48%
Notes: Vicio is a good place to start for any Mezcal newbie. It’s neutral, easy drinking, and not super smokey. It has that general roasted agave flavor to it, with a little bit of that roasted rubberiness to the smoke profile. It’s good for mixing, but watch out at 48% proof. The little friend on the label is an Axolotl, or a salamander, which is from a short story that inspired the founders, but we just think it arrived to them in a vision after finishing a bottle. :)
mezcal #2: vida
“You don’t find Mezcal, it finds you.” Or so says Del Maguey founder Ron Cooper. Cooper was one of the first enthusiast turned exporter to bring Mezcal to the American market (at least one without a worm in the bottom) way back in 1995. In the years since, they’ve done so much to educate American palates about the beauty of Mezcal, all while honoring and sustaining single villages throughout Mexico. Vida was marketed specifically at an entry level price point, and with enough versatility to be mixed into cocktails. They work with 12 families total to produce their Single Village Mezcals, and you’ll see rows of their iconic green glass bottles with their striking labels designed by Ken Price on the shelves of pretty much any bar that carries Mezcal in the US. Not to say that’s a bad thing. Their pervasiveness has done a lot to open the market here in the states for other growers to be able to sell their product, and their methods and practices have remained tried and true.
Maestros: Paciano & Marcos Cruz Nolasco
Origen: San Luis del Rio, Oaxaca
Agave: Espadín
Fermentation: 8-10 days. Copper still.
ABV: 42%
Notes: Vida has kind of a sweet nose with a lot of citrus notes. The chemical fuminess is less like sharpie markers and more like a watermelon sour patch kid. Definitely softer at 42% it can easily be mixed into a nice Paloma.
All of Del Maguey’s labels were designed by Ron Cooper’s friend and neighbor, Ken Price, an artist in LA.
mezcal #3: vago
Yet another tale of love and Mezcal when co-founder/surfer Judah Kuper got an ear infection, and while getting treated at the hospital, fell in love with his nurse, Valentina. Her father, Aquilino García López, happened to be a master mezcalero! The courtship led to Kuper starting Vago to showcase López’s joven Mezcals to the world. True romance.
This Espadín is gorgeous. There are multiple Espadín expressions available from Vago, but this is an opportunity to explore how the maestro plays such an important role in the final product. Vago color codes their labels according to the maestro that makes them, and this case the blue label is from Emigdio Jarquin, who won the gold medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition—twice.
Maestro: Emigdio Jarquin
Origen: Miahuatlan, Oaxaca
Agave: Espadín
Fermentation: Refrescador still.
ABV: 50%
Notes: So much going on. Blueberry, citrus, but with a sweetie meaty peaty smoke, and a creamy texture. Delish.
I love that their labels are all printed on recycled mash that remains from the spent agave after distillation.
mezcal #4: NOble Coyote capón
We tried to get a fourth Mezcal that starts with a “V” but were unsuccessful. Noble Coyote has many different expressions that you’ll see on back bars with their striking sugar skull style coyote labels. We chose the Capón to illustrate a choice in harvesting. When Espadín are ready to flower, they send up a huuuuge flowering stalk (that resembles a stalk of asparagus). Much like a Capon chicken, the maguey farmers choose to cut off this stalk, castrating the plant, and thus preserving that mating energy (read: sugar) in the bulb, leaving more to convert into delicious Mezcal.
Maestros: Eleazar & Marcos Brena
Origen: Santiago Matatlan, Oaxaca
Agave: Espadín
Fermentation: Copper still.
ABV: 48%
Notes: For all the effort in preserving the sugars in the plant, this is a surprisingly dry Mezcal. It’s quite savory actually with a very floral profile, backed by woody smoke, and baking spice/anise notes.