What You Should Be Drinking Instead Of Tequila

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With high-end mezcalerias popping up in foodie capitals across the U.S. and premiumbottles muscling their way onto shelves at your neighborhood bodega, we wanted to give youthe lowdown on what makes mezcal special and considerably different from its mainstreamsuperstar cousin, tequila.So we jumped into our 4x4, hit the dusty dirt roads of the Agave Trail and visited acouple of distilleries to see what truly separates Mexico’s two favorite exports(not counting Dusk Till Dawn-era Salma Hayek andwell-marinated carne asada burritos, naturally).Since its mainstreamintroduction to the U.S., tequila has been scorned as the Agent Orange of thedrinker’s arsenal -- cheap, powerful and gets the job done quickly but with littlefinesse. It’s long been pigeonholed as magic potion that allows philistine springbreakers to quicken the slow, awkward mating dance from Señor Frog’s stickydance floor to humid Acapulco hotel rooms. But much has changed in the last decade, with“super premium” tequila sales spiking 319% since 2003 (in total, 11.6 millioncases of tequila were sold to the U.S. in 2010). Any drinker worth his whisky stonesknows by now that tequila can be a truly refined, exquisite drink -- not one to be shotand quickly forgotten with the bite of a lime wedge, but something to be appreciated,slowly sipped on and swirled across the palate.But beware: Many tequilas thatuntil even fairly recently were top-notch have felt the squeeze of mass production,cutting necessary corners to meet new demand and boost the bottom lines for theirInternational Conglomerate Overlords.That’s where mezcal comes in. Fornow, tequila’s under-appreciated older sibling has largely escaped this kind ofetiolating mass commercialization. Thankfully, the new wave of mezcals making their wayinto the U.S. are made in small batches by artisanal distilleries, which is what makes thesmoky tequila cousin so intriguing to epicureans and boozehounds alike. Todd Hallberg,founder of Metl Mezcal -- one of the first U.S. importers of premium mezcal -- has seenfirsthand the transformation of the American market. “When I first started thiscompany all I could find was the cheap rotgut with the worm in it,” he remembers. Asa surf junkie in the ‘90s, Hallberg scoured hidden Mexican coastal villages for theperfect wave, and in the process fell in love with mezcal. Although initially scoffed atwhen he founded Metl in 2005, he’s now found bar owners and distributorsincreasingly receptive. “Bar owners used to look at me all cross-eyed when Iapproached them; now they’re asking what took me so long!” he laughs.One and the same?

One thing to stress is that officially, all spirits distilled from the agave plant aremezcal, which is made in seven states throughout Mexico. Tequila, the most popularvariation of mezcal, can only be distilled from Weber blue agave (usually in Jalisco). Theheartland of traditional mezcal is Oaxaca, where the most renowned and fundamental mezcalis made from Agave espadín, the genetic mother of all agaves. These standards allfall under Appellation of Origin laws, meaning they’re as tightly regulated by theMexican government as France regulates its champagne, Chile its pisco and Scotland itssingle malts.What’s with all the names?

In 1785, in order to protect his country’s brandy and wine makers, King Charles IIIof Spain declared all mezcals illegal. Of course, this didn’t stop anyone fromactually making the stuff; they just started calling it all sorts of different names toavoid prison. For this reason, mezcal at one point had more monikers than Ol’ DirtyBastard.To Worm Or Not To Worm

Despite what you may have learned from spaghetti Westerns and Bugs Bunny cartoons, mostbottles of mezcal do not contain a worm. Initially a gimmick dreamed up to differentiatemezcal from the tequila industry, the con gusano (“with worm”)variety is ironically a sign of moth infestation, which signifies lower agave quality. Continue Reading

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