| Pages:
1
2 |
Osprey
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3694
Registered: 5-23-2004
Location: Baja Ca. Sur
Member Is Offline
|
|
Tequila vs Mezcal
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.
|
|
|
David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64755
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
|
|
|
|
|
dougf69
Junior Nomad
Posts: 38
Registered: 5-28-2008
Location: mulege & Okanagan Valley, B.C.
Member Is Offline
|
|
Profound 
|
|
|
Udo
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6343
Registered: 4-26-2008
Location: Black Hills, SD/Ensenada/San Felipe
Member Is Offline
Mood: TEQUILA!
|
|
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!
Udo
Youth is wasted on the young!
|
|
|
bajabuddha
Banned
Posts: 4024
Registered: 4-12-2013
Location: Baja New Mexico
Member Is Offline
Mood: Always cranky unless medicated
|
|
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!
I don't have a BUCKET LIST, but I do have a F***- IT LIST a mile long!
86 - 45*
|
|
|
weebray
Super Nomad
Posts: 1094
Registered: 7-19-2010
Location: La Paz
Member Is Offline
Mood: lleno
|
|
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.
Every beautiful beach in the world needs a few condo towers - NOT.
|
|
|
bajagrouper
Senior Nomad
Posts: 964
Registered: 8-28-2003
Location: Rincon de Guayabitos, Nayarit, Mexico
Member Is Offline
Mood: happy and retired
|
|
| 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.....
I hear the whales song
|
|
|
Mulegena
Super Nomad
Posts: 2412
Registered: 11-7-2006
Member Is Offline
|
|
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.
"Raise your words, not your voice. It's rain that grows flowers, not thunder." ~Rumi
"It's the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." ~ Aristotle
|
|
|
dasubergeek
Senior Nomad
Posts: 694
Registered: 8-17-2013
Member Is Offline
|
|
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
Super Nomad
Posts: 1094
Registered: 7-19-2010
Location: La Paz
Member Is Offline
Mood: lleno
|
|
Dasubergeek - Mulegena: Super contributions, Abrazos!
Every beautiful beach in the world needs a few condo towers - NOT.
|
|
|
Bob53
Senior Nomad
Posts: 661
Registered: 2-24-2014
Location: Fallbrook, CA & Bahia de los Angeles
Member Is Offline
|
|
I want some right now.
|
|
|
Osprey
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3694
Registered: 5-23-2004
Location: Baja Ca. Sur
Member Is Offline
|
|
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
Senior Nomad
Posts: 694
Registered: 8-17-2013
Member Is Offline
|
|
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
Super Nomad
Posts: 1094
Registered: 7-19-2010
Location: La Paz
Member Is Offline
Mood: lleno
|
|
Dasubergeek. You pull'en my leg? Where, o where, m'I gonna find this????
Every beautiful beach in the world needs a few condo towers - NOT.
|
|
|
dasubergeek
Senior Nomad
Posts: 694
Registered: 8-17-2013
Member Is Offline
|
|
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
Super Nomad
Posts: 1094
Registered: 7-19-2010
Location: La Paz
Member Is Offline
Mood: lleno
|
|
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.
Every beautiful beach in the world needs a few condo towers - NOT.
|
|
|
Udo
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6343
Registered: 4-26-2008
Location: Black Hills, SD/Ensenada/San Felipe
Member Is Offline
Mood: TEQUILA!
|
|
Mr. weebray,
You should check Total Wine And More.
They have at least 5 Mezcal brands there.
Udo
Youth is wasted on the young!
|
|
|
bajabuddha
Banned
Posts: 4024
Registered: 4-12-2013
Location: Baja New Mexico
Member Is Offline
Mood: Always cranky unless medicated
|
|
| 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!!!
I don't have a BUCKET LIST, but I do have a F***- IT LIST a mile long!
86 - 45*
|
|
|
wessongroup
Platinum Nomad
Posts: 21152
Registered: 8-9-2009
Location: Mission Viejo
Member Is Offline
Mood: Suicide Hot line ... please hold
|
|
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
Banned
Posts: 4024
Registered: 4-12-2013
Location: Baja New Mexico
Member Is Offline
Mood: Always cranky unless medicated
|
|
| 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.
(once again, Delusions of Adequacy)
[Edited on 3-8-2014 by bajabuddha]
I don't have a BUCKET LIST, but I do have a F***- IT LIST a mile long!
86 - 45*
|
|
|
| Pages:
1
2 |
![[*]](images/xmbforum/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
