BajaNomad - Tequila vs Mezcal

Tequila vs Mezcal

Osprey - 3-6-2014 at 07:06 PM

I know from your posts a lot of Nomads are connoisseurs of fine tequila but I don't hear much about my favorite, Mezcal.

I'm a Mezcal guy. I learned early on that if I was gonna swim in the whiskey river I better beware what I drink.

Mezcal always let me down easy, showed me soft places to fall but I looked at Tequila as a real life changer. Drink too much Tequila and bad things can happen quick, like a cobra bite.

Mezcal just sends you off on fuzzy vacations with a few strangers, lets you wonder on Friday what you missed since Tuesday. (usually you can do the guessing while at liberty, i.e. at large)

I was one of the lucky ones. I drank my way down the whiskey river before the advent of the point and shoot camera.

I rest my case.

how tequila works nomad.jpg - 27kB

David K - 3-6-2014 at 07:54 PM

:lol:

dougf69 - 3-6-2014 at 07:56 PM

Profound

Udo - 3-7-2014 at 10:00 AM

My feelings exactly, George.

I started drinking Mezcal a few years ago, when a restaurant owner in Ensenada (Muelle Tres) used to bring us a shot of his home made Mezcal as an aperitif.
Then I started purchasing different Mezcals offered at varietal liquor stores.

I just add a couple of drops of lime juice. What an amazing hooch!

bajabuddha - 3-7-2014 at 10:54 AM

I've been told the two are made from different cacti; Tekillya is made from the agave, and mescal is from the maguey (NOT the mescal cactus). However, they both give the effect of Delusions of Adequacy. Mescal (back in the day) usually was a lower alcohol content. The li'l worm, Sr. Gusano, is a grub that lives in the maguey cactus and the legend of putting it in the bottle is to tell if it's 'done' or not when brewed. If the worm turns ugly, so's the hooch. Plus, to eat one after consuming the contents of the bottle "brings many male babies". Like I said, 'Delusions of Adequacy'. Long live corralejo!
:biggrin:

weebray - 3-7-2014 at 11:21 AM

Sometime in the early 70's, as a young pup, I was on a train to Oaxaca. A Mexican carpenter befriended me and we went to his house. He made caskets. He took me under his house and dug up a handmade crock like bottle of mescal from the dirt. It was sealed with a cork and wax. "De quince anos" he kept telling me. At the time I did not know that most mexcal was "joven". We went up to his kitchen and he poured me a tumbler full. The smokey, earthy, sweet, acrid taste was like nothing I'd ever encountered. It was smooth and warmed the belly. The more I drank the better it became. This was my first experience with a psychedelic liquor. I have never had quite the same psychedelic experience since that day but I have enjoyed my rest stops at the altar of mescal ever since. There are any number of great mescals out there. If you can get your hands on a bottle of "illegal" mescal, you may be transformed from tequila.

bajagrouper - 3-7-2014 at 11:36 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Osprey
I know from your posts a lot of Nomads are connoisseurs of fine tequila but I don't hear much about my favorite, Mezcal.

I'm a Mezcal guy. I learned early on that if I was gonna swim in the whiskey river I better beware what I drink.

Mezcal always let me down easy, showed me soft places to fall but I looked at Tequila as a real life changer. Drink too much Tequila and bad things can happen quick, like a cobra bite.

Mezcal just sends you off on fuzzy vacations with a few strangers, lets you wonder on Friday what you missed since Tuesday. (usually you can do the guessing while at liberty, i.e. at large)

I was one of the lucky ones. I drank my way down the whiskey river before the advent of the point and shoot camera.

I rest my case.

Osprey,
All Tequila is Mescal,
All Mescal is not Tequila......

bajabuddha,
Neither is made from a cactus, they are both made from the Agave plant a member of the Lily family...Tequila is made from the Weber Blue Agave only...Pulque is made from the Maguy or Century Plant,it is fermented Agua Miel.....

Mulegena - 3-7-2014 at 11:48 AM

While riding on a train from Nuevo Laredo to Mex City, second-class seat, 7 dollars, klickity-klack down the interior, hard unforgiving seats even for this young woman at the time, I befriended a gorgeous man who got onboard one morning as the sun arose, and as fate would have it found an vacant bench right in front of me.

This beautiful slightly-older man had in his hands a mason jar full of lovely milky amber-colored liquid from which he did sip. He had lived north of the border for a time, worked in Colorado, spoke nice English in a deep sonorous voice and he indulged me in my competent Spanish.

Lovely Man smiled and generously offered to share his liquid gold with me. He said his mother had made it. How could I resist? Smooth, smooth as his sonorous voice was this mysterious liquid, and the taste-- it tasted like lemonade!

"Whoa, what is this regional drink your mother has made, (Beautiful Man, I thot to myself)?"

"Maguey" he replied as the sun was rising over the fields of cactus, klickity klack-klickity klack down the tracks we went.

Delicious, ummm...

By and by the mason jar emptied and Mr. Gorgeous Man with Smooth as Silk Voice turned, took my hand in his and with a soft smile bid me adieu. This was his stop, he explained. He had enjoyed our conversation. He disembarked at the next station.

Klickity klack, klickity klack down the tracks the old engine shifted, deeper and deeper into the Mexican interior. As I looked out the window over the rolling red hills dotted with maguey and corn, a grand flock of birds rose up into the sky in unison dancing a wild and carefree flight.

dasubergeek - 3-7-2014 at 12:03 PM

Mezcal is amazing stuff, but not all mezcal is created equally.

All tequila is technically mezcal, but not all mezcal is tequila. Tequila can only come from Jalisco and certain municipios in Guanajuato, Michoacán, Nayarit and Tamaulipas. Mezcal can only come from Durango, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Michoacán, San Luis Potosi, Tamaulipas, Zacatecas, and the recently approved Michoacan. Everyone else's agave liquor must be named something else (Sonora's is called bacanora; Chihuahua's is called sotol; most others are just called licor de agavácea).

Much of the stuff from Zacatecas, Michoacán and Guanajuato is made from blue agave and would be called tequila if it were inside the tequila denomination region. It's not particularly smoky. Huitzila, from a municipio in Zacatecas that borders Jalisco, is a good example of this type of mezcal.

Tequila can only be made from 51% or more blue agave. Mezcal can be made from any of about 30-40 different agave plants, including agave espadín, agave tobalá, agave tobaziche, agave dobadaan, agave madrecuixe, agave tepeztate, etc.

Don't drink liquor with insects in it. This is a good rule of thumb in general, but when applied to mezcal it tells you that you're drinking things meant for people who know mezcal, not for stupid tourists who buy beehive-shaped plastic vats of crappy sugar water on the entronque from the 15-D toll road in Tequila. This means Scorpión, too—that stuff will give you a headache.

Aged mezcal can be very good but as you age it longer, you lose the different flavors of the various mezcales jóvenes to the taste of wood. The range of flavors is HUGE in mezcal, far more than in tequila, which is made from only one kind of plant. Drink a tobalá and an espadín together and you'll be shocked at the difference.

Ilegal Mezcal (a brand) is a good stepping stone from tequila to more strongly flavored mezcales. It's smoky but it's not overwhelming. La Niña del Mezcal is available both in Mexico and in the U.S. and is my favorite, though Del Maguey has the widest variety of Oaxacan mezcales. I use Fidencio for mixing drinks. Try a mezcal Old Fashioned sometime—muddle together in a glass a strip of orange peel (no white pith), a sugar cube, splash of water, four shakes of Angostura bitters and two shakes of orange bitters. Just tap it, don't grind it. Then add two ounces of mezcal and some ice, stir, and sip.

I am actually on my way to Oaxaca next week to go tour palenques and drink a burro-load of mezcal.

weebray - 3-7-2014 at 12:49 PM

Dasubergeek - Mulegena: Super contributions, Abrazos!

Bob53 - 3-7-2014 at 12:57 PM

I want some right now.

Osprey - 3-7-2014 at 02:01 PM

Many years ago I went snow-trailing with some friends in Southern Utah on snowmobiles. We took along extra this and that including bottles of wine – lots of breakdowns then cause the machines were made of wood and looked like little log cabins. My pals showed me how they stuck the wine bottles in the snow to mark the trail and as a survival/fun thing.

I remembered that later when I fished/jeeped all over that area in the summer. Utah had/has strange booze laws and there were little bars all over where you could “Bring your own Booze” and buy a setup for a buck. On most trips I took a couple or more bottles of Gusano Rojo, put my name on the bottles and left them at these neat little country way-stations.

Worked out great because I didn’t have any open containers in the vehicle and I sometimes got to sleep in the stock rooms or behind the buildings when I really needed to cool my jets and get a fresh sober start the next morning. Nice warm feeling to know I was never far from the sweet poison when I traveled and it was already bought and paid for.

dasubergeek - 3-7-2014 at 02:06 PM

Oh! And then there's pechuga, which is its own wonderful story.

Mezcal is nearly always distilled twice: the first distillation has lots of congeners (read: particles that make mezcal taste bad) and is called ordinario, and the second distillation is the thing that makes it taste like mezcal.

Occasionally, as a celebration, a producer will take a tank of mezcal and distill it a third time, putting whatever fruits and vegetables are in season in the distillation tank with the mezcal, and suspending an entire bone-in turkey (or, less commonly, chicken) breast above the level of the liquid.

This is how distillation works: alcohol boils at just over 78ºC and water, of course, boils at 100ºC. So if you heat mezcal to around 80ºC, the alcohol will evaporate and rise to the top of the tank (and through the cooling tubes) while the water is left behind. This means that no meat "juice" gets into the mezcal, but the mezcal is perfumed by the cooked meat.

When you sip mezcal pechuga, you don't taste meat; you taste mezcal first and foremost, with that smoky flavor tempered a little bit by the sweetness of fruit and an elusive flavor (if you believe in "umami", this is it). The exact flavor depends on what fruits and nuts (and sometimes rice) were put in the tank.

It's perfectly safe; the USDA recommends cooking poultry to 74ºC (165ºF) and it takes so long to boil a tank of mezcal that the poultry is thoroughly cooked.

The same thing is often done with rabbit, in which case it's called mezcal conejo.

[Edited on 3-7-2014 by dasubergeek]

weebray - 3-7-2014 at 03:09 PM

Dasubergeek. You pull'en my leg? Where, o where, m'I gonna find this????

dasubergeek - 3-7-2014 at 04:08 PM

You can buy it in large, well-stocked liquor stores NOB. K&L Wines in LA, Hi-Time Wine in OC and Old Town Liquors in SD for certain sure. I've never been to La Paz so I don't know where your liquor stores are down there, but my usual stops for liquor in Baja Norte are Leyva's on Revolución in TJ and Don Pisto in Puerto Nuevo.

weebray - 3-7-2014 at 04:39 PM

REAL mescal of any kind is hard to find down here in choyero country. I will ask around and report back. I do remember "High Times liquor" on 17th st. in Costa Mesa. A real museum of liquor. It was like a LA rush hour on Sat. nights.

Udo - 3-7-2014 at 06:19 PM

Mr. weebray,

You should check Total Wine And More.
They have at least 5 Mezcal brands there.

bajabuddha - 3-7-2014 at 06:28 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Osprey
Utah had/has strange booze laws and there were little bars all over where you could “Bring your own Booze” and buy a setup for a buck.

Man, that was MANY years ago! Having been born and dragged up behind the Zion Curtain (46 yrs there) i can testify (pun intended) that; if you think their liquor laws are funny, ya oughta see their underwear!!!

wessongroup - 3-7-2014 at 06:42 PM

Surprised no one has brought up Pulque ... plants are really cool

"There is a saying that pulque "sólo le falta un grado para ser carne" -- "it is only a bit shy of being meat", referring to the nutritional value of the drink.[26] This was recognized by the Mesoamericans, who allowed pregnant women and the elderly to imbibe what was normally reserved only for priests and nobility. Modern analysis of the liquid has found that it contains carbohydrates, vitamin C, B-complex, D, E, amino acids and minerals such as iron and phosphorus.[4][9]"

bajabuddha - 3-7-2014 at 06:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by weebray
The more I drank the better it became. This was my first experience with a psychedelic liquor. I have never had quite the same psychedelic experience since that day but I have enjoyed my rest stops at the altar of mescal ever since.

Ermmm, sowwy but Mescal is no more 'psychedelic' than Jaegermeister is an opiate. :no:

(once again, Delusions of Adequacy)

[Edited on 3-8-2014 by bajabuddha]

Osprey - 3-7-2014 at 06:56 PM

I think the Olmecs had a rule that anyone seen drunk in public on pulque was stoned to death. It might be a stretch to think that the language then and now could carry that custom to "Being stoned" but anything is possible.

I guess if you were just a little tipsy you could be severely pebbled. I've been pebbled before myself but it was just some cheap scotch and it was almost (4 months, three days away) from my birthday so there's that.

wessongroup - 3-7-2014 at 07:00 PM

:lol:

dasubergeek - 3-7-2014 at 09:44 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by bajabuddha

Quote:

Ermmm, sowwy but Mescal is no more 'psychedelic' than Jaegermeister is an opiate. :no:

(once again, Delusions of Adequacy)

[Edited on 3-8-2014 by bajabuddha]

All y'all thinking of mescaline... not mezcal. (Always with a Z, mezcal, screw you, Oxford English Dictionary.)

Para todo mal, mezcal, y para todo bien también.

[Edited on 3-8-2014 by dasubergeek]

elgatoloco - 3-7-2014 at 11:51 PM

We have several Del Maguey single village mezcals including Minero, Chichicapa & Pechuga. Made with chicken and mountain apples. Only produced for a few months in the fall when the apples and plums are ripe. Mescal is an acquired taste and lucky for me most of my friends and family prefer to drink my tequila so more mezcals for me. :saint:

High Time in the OC and Bristol Farms in LJ are where I found the Del Magueys.

Das - I am envious of your trip to the region.. Some day when I grow up I hope to get down there. In the meantime I will have to make do with what I have.

As a side note - Mision 19 in TJ had a nice selection of mezcals. One was an organic mezcal that was very smooth. They had it in a huge hand blown glass 'bottle'. We have been frequenting Romesco in Bonita for the excellent food and they also have the same organic mezcal. I like a Paloma with mezcal but I mostly prefer it neat.

Viva Mezcal! Viva Tequila! Viva Mexico!

baconjr - 3-9-2014 at 09:31 AM

If you are heading to Oaxaxa visit and stay at Casa Rabb, this is a great place.http://svneko.com/2014/03/08/animal-house/

CortezBlue - 3-9-2014 at 09:41 AM

I thought this was going to be a pay per view cage match :spingrin:

basautter - 3-10-2014 at 05:36 AM

Looks like the Mezcal goggles work well! Might make it worth the headache.

JohnMcfrog - 3-12-2014 at 07:07 PM

My first experience with Mezcal was at Guadalupe Canyon about 40 years ago. I had been clearing sick trees on my property in Deerhorn Valley, about 2500' above SD. Made a mistake and took a tree in the face. No health care, so used butterfly bandages and decided the sulphur springs at Guadalupe might be the cure.

My friend and I arrived there at night and went to the enclosed hot spring deal they had there at the time. A woman and two men were in the pool. She was topless, but I tried not to be too obvious. They pulled out a bottle of mezcal and the the evening began! He (the big guy) ultimately revealed that he had just got out of the joint. After a suitable length of earth time I asked him what he had got popped for. He said "Murder". Glad we had the Mezcal to bridge our separate worlds.

Whale-ista - 3-12-2014 at 09:09 PM

Wow, what an interesting discussion! Thank you mezcalistas for your insights.

I've never heard of "single village mezcal"? Is that anything like single malt scotch?

I've only recently begun to appreciate the finer points of tequila. You guys are at a whole other level, clearly.

elgatoloco - 3-12-2014 at 11:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Whale-ista
Wow, what an interesting discussion! Thank you mezcalistas for your insights.

I've never heard of "single village mezcal"? Is that anything like single malt scotch?

I've only recently begun to appreciate the finer points of tequila. You guys are at a whole other level, clearly.

www.mezcal.com

:dudette:

Raicilla

coolhand - 3-14-2014 at 01:59 AM

If you ever had the good stuff the cowboys bring down from hills of Cabo Corrientes, you wouldn't be drinking anything else!

dasubergeek - 3-18-2014 at 04:07 PM

Just got back from Oaxaca, where I learned that I knew very little about mezcal. Seriously, the entire city and surrounding area is just swimming in the most amazing mezcal—and the most amazing food. I estimate my daily intake of mezcal over the last week to be 500 mL (more than a pint) a day, and yet I was only drunk once (the night we went to a free-pour party at a distiller's event).

"Single village" doesn't matter nearly as much as "single agave". It drives me insane that I have to stare at the Del Maguey bottles to figure out what effin kind of mezcal it is.

Mezcal can be made from dozens of different agaves, all of which taste intensely different. What most people drink, and the one that's cultivated, is espadín. It's a spiny, long-leafed agave, as opposed to something like tobalá, which is short and squat and looks like something you'd plant in a rock garden.

You need the following information when looking at a mezcal, running in rough order from most to least important:

1. Variety (espadín, cuishe, madrecuishe, tobalá, tobaziche, tepextate, arroqueño, cirial, etc.)
2. Village of origin (Matatlán, Nochixtlán, Mitla, Coyotepec, Tlacolula, etc.)
3. Alcoholic content (try for > 45%)
4. Method of fermentation (natural vs. added yeast, go for natural)
5. Number of distillations (look for 2, max 3 for pechuga/conejo/etc.)
6. Type of still (clay, stone or copper pot)
7. Master distiller's name (great mezcales have this information)

coolhand, I had some raicillas last week in a mezcalería that just absolutely blew me away. Seriously.

EDITED TO ADD:

One of the things I was mistaken about was the name for the first distillation. While first-distillation tequilas are called ordinario, first-distillation mezcales are called puntas.

I just went to Hi-Time and they've seriously expanded their mezcal selection. Besides the aforementioned La Niña del Mezcal, Del Maguey and Fidencio, I can also vouch for Mezcal El Silencio (which is only importing espadín), Mezcal Tosba (also only espadín) and Mezcal Marca Negra (espadín and tobalá).

Also, I fell in love with pulque... I'd only had it in a restaurant in Tlaquepaque, where it isn't exactly endemic, and it was so awful we had to alternate sips with bites of chile-rubbed grasshoppers. But we went to a pulquería in Matatlán that was literally a dirt-floored room with an old Zapotec woman ladling freshly made pulque out of a clay jarro, and it was absolutely magical.

[Edited on 3-18-2014 by dasubergeek]

Ateo - 3-18-2014 at 04:17 PM

How about all of the above?

dasubergeek - 3-18-2014 at 04:26 PM

The only ones out of that picture I drink are Tecate and Modelo Especial... unless of course I've given one, because the correct, polite answer to "would you like a beer?" is always "yes, please."

[Edited on 3-18-2014 by dasubergeek]

bajagrouper - 3-18-2014 at 04:41 PM

I was in Mitla a few weeks ago and at a small distillery's store they had a small softball size black clay jug with a cork some salt and no label. I thought it may be rotgut but I poped it open when I got home and it was smooth and delicious...Also toured and ate at the Restaurant Rancho Zapata and bought a bottle of their Joven which I enjoyed more than their Repesado....

P.S. geek, if you were drinking 500ml a day it is more than a pint,more like a 1/2 liter.......

willardguy - 3-18-2014 at 05:51 PM

to be a mezcal mixto agave sugars must be at least 80% unlike tequila's 51%. I assume like tequila the bottle will state 100% agave? are there mezcals that are a blend of different agaves, and lastly, whats a good mezcal that can be purchased down here in the $20 a liter range?

dasubergeek - 3-19-2014 at 09:32 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by bajagrouper
I was in Mitla a few weeks ago and at a small distillery's store they had a small softball size black clay jug with a cork some salt and no label. I thought it may be rotgut but I poped it open when I got home and it was smooth and delicious...Also toured and ate at the Restaurant Rancho Zapata and bought a bottle of their Joven which I enjoyed more than their Repesado....

P.S. geek, if you were drinking 500ml a day it is more than a pint,more like a 1/2 liter.......

You're lucky—last week, in protest against what they view as insufficient promotion and assistance from the government, they started refusing to let tourists into Mitla. You could drive through on Mex 190, but you couldn't go into town.

I was going for estimations, I don't actually know how much it was because there was so much of it. Came home with four litres (yay for flying across the border instead of driving!)

Quote:

Originally posted by willardguy
to be a mezcal mixto agave sugars must be at least 80% unlike tequila's 51%. I assume like tequila the bottle will state 100% agave? are there mezcals that are a blend of different agaves, and lastly, whats a good mezcal that can be purchased down here in the $20 a liter range?

Type 1 mezcal is 100% de agave. Type 2 mezcal can be up to 20% other sugars. The vast—VAST—majority of mezcal is Type 1. The bottle will normally say; bottles of good mezcal are much more informative on average than bottles of good tequila.

Yes, there are blends, and normally the blend is specified, or at least it will tell you if it's all wild ("silvestre") agave.

I don't know where "here" is, but in Oaxaca, most of the good stuff falls between 400-500$m.n. a fifth and espadín comes in about 300$m.n. a fifth. You can certainly spend more, if you want a 'name' like Pierde Almas, but I don't see spending 1400$m.n. on a bottle of mezcal. In the US, Xicaru is a reliable, cheap brand, or Ilegal, which is a little bit less smoky and is a 'starter' mezcal for people who may not be ready for the palate assault of a full-on smoked wild agave mezcal.

[Edited on 3-19-2014 by dasubergeek]