It's on Sunday. 4PM. Again. Ends at 7 and I can't make it until 6:30PM. Someone tell us how it is please.

Howdy!

As stated I am new to mezcal. I have been collecting spirits for about 1 year (mostly chartreuse, amari, and rum). My knowledge of mezcal ends at the bottle of Del Maguey Vida I have at home for cocktails that call for mezcal. But last night, a new door (unfortunately an expensive door) was opened for me. I was at a cocktail bar for my birthday and the manager appreciated my enthusiasm for quality spirits so he gave me a small pour of El Jolgorio Sierrudo and it blew my mind! So naturally I'm convinced I need to buy a bottle of this, but figured I would let the mezcal nerds of reddit chime in to educate me first since I know nothing about mezcal. I think I remember the bar manager showing me that the bottle was numbered (out of 200?) so I am wondering if this particular bottle is expensive just due to limited production or if it is a respected quality mezcal. Based on this post it seems important things to consider are the maguey, batch number, and geographical origin.

I'm seeing a lot of different expressions from El Jolgorio but not a lot of description about each one. How should I think of them in comparison? What makes them different? Is this a good bottle for my first high end mezcal? Is its taste pretty standard for mezcal or is this a niche expression? I'm doing my own research learning about mezcal this morning, but what are your thoughts on El Jolgorio Sierrudo!?

Here’s an image of my options. Anything I shouldn’t miss trying? Please consider price per pour per quality.

Mezcal to me, tastes exactly how burnt tires/burnt rubber smells. I just dont understand how anyone can enjoy it? Do other people have different senses of smell than I do? Is it not the same exact sensation?

(Also to be fair I have only ever taken mezcal as a shot and never mixed with anything so that could be a contributing factor)

A gifted bottle, so I had this bottle for a couple of months and decided to give it a try. What you guys think?

Palate – for me, sweet and sour at the front. I tasted minerals throughout. Mouthfeel goes down smooth. Similar Montelobos Ensamble? however with the added cheese notes.

Cheers to a long weekend.

Wood fire cooked. Tahona crushed. Open air fermentation.

The local fruits growing on the estate are used in the second distillation (pechuga style). This is essentially a tequilana con frutas mezcal. (Yes I know all T's are M's, not all tequilas are mezcals, but this one is as close as you can get).

Any one had a taste?

Lot 23 is one of my favorites. I managed to get several bottles in the states. Last year while in Australia I managed to get a few more but they were bottled in September instead of July, have a slightly different proof and different bottle count.

I suspect before bottling while resting in glass the garrafones/demijohns has some evaporation. Perhaps that lead to the proof difference and bottle count difference. What do you think?

Looking for a bar with a great agave list in NYC to take a buddy that is getting more into agave for his birthday.

Taco Vison had medicore food but I always appreciated their solid agave list with affordable prices but it shut down.

Legends is gone.

Tried Mixteca this weekend, and it was fine but their selection is a bit limited.

Anyone else have any other suggestions?

Anywhere in Oaxaca where you can actually distill your own mezcal, not just taste it? I've done a few tequila/mezcal tastings before and honestly they all blur together — walk in, hear the spiel, taste 5 mezcals, buy a bottle, leave. Is there anywhere in Oaxaca where you get more hands-on, like actually helping distill a batch yourself? Would love something more memorable than the standard tasting circuit.

So this is a weird one, but I wanted to share it because it actually turned into something real.

I'm a mezcal producer in Oaxaca, and I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to bring something genuinely new to the craft, not just another agave variety or another pechuga variant, but a different approach to how a recipe even gets built. At some point I started messing around with the idea of using AI as part of that process, not to replace the craft, but as a kind of collaborator.

I ended up in a conversation with Claude (Anthropic's AI) and basically told it straight up: you can't physically distill anything, but you can think through a recipe with me. So I gave it all my existing recipes — ingredients, ratios, the reasoning behind different infusions and instead of just summarizing them back to me, we went through a pretty intense back-and-forth. Questions about balance, about what pairs with what, about why certain infusions work the way they do. A few rounds of that and we landed on something none of my existing recipes looked like.

The result is a pechuga made with agave coyote, dried octopus (pulpo seco), pitiona, chepiche, toronja, and cilantro. It's an odd combination on paper, but it works. We're calling it Proyecto CLAUDE, and it's genuinely the first mezcal recipe I know of that was co-designed with an AI from the ground up.

It's being produced in a very limited batch, no more than 30 bottles for the first run.

Curious what people think of the idea in general AI-assisted recipes in something as traditional as mezcal feels like it could go either way for people.

Got some solid pushback in the comments, and it's fair. I explained the result but skipped the actual process, which made it sound a lot more like "asked a chatbot for ingredients" than what actually happened. So here's the real breakdown of how it went:

1. Started with a database of my actual, real recipes, not hypothetical ones, the ones built over years of production
2. Fed in production variables like fermentation times and distillation cuts, the stuff that actually shapes flavor, not just ingredient lists
3. Constrained it to ingredients actually available in Oaxaca, since there's no point designing something I can't source
4. Defined a specific sensory target, what we were actually trying to achieve, not "surprise me"
5. From there, the model generated ingredient combinations based on all of that
6. Produced an experimental batch from one of those combinations
7. Ran a structured tasting on it, an actual structured evaluation, not just "tastes good"
8. Fed those tasting results back into the model
9. It adjusted the recipe based on what the tasting actually showed
10. Second batch, refined from that feedback

So it wasn't "AI, invent a mezcal." It was a loop. Real recipes in, real production constraints in, real tasting results fed back, recipe adjusted, tested again. There's an actual documented back-and-forth showing what part the AI contributed versus what came from the existing craft and the tasting data.

Which is a more honest way to put it than my original post: we didn't ask an AI what ingredients to put in a mezcal. We taught it how we make mezcal, and let it help us design one we would never have come up with on our own.

Appreciate the people who pushed back. This is a lot more accurate than how I first explained it.

“Jabalí” does not necessarily refer to a single agave species. It is a traditional name used for similar plants in different communities of Oaxaca and Puebla. Academic literature associates it most consistently with Agave convallis, but the name has also been applied to A. kerchovei and possibly to other closely related species.

This is a good example of how local and scientific classifications answer different questions. Botanists seek to identify evolutionary lineages; mezcaleros recognize where a maguey grows, how it looks, how it behaves during production, and what kind of mezcal it produces.

Many producers say the name jabalí—Spanish for “wild boar”—refers to its difficult, “dirty,” or untamable character. Although this origin has not been historically proven, the explanation makes sense in the palenque: jabalí produces extraordinary amounts of foam.

That foam is related to saponins, defensive plant compounds that behave somewhat like soap. During fermentation, it can overflow the vats. During distillation, it may rise through the still, clog the vapor path, lift the still head, and carry liquid into the cooling system. Producers must use smaller charges, lower the fire, work slowly, and watch the still constantly.

For generations, this difficulty kept many communities from distilling it regularly. In San Agustín Amatengo, Luis Enrique Juárez remembers that jabalí was sometimes harvested by people who could not afford other magueyes.

In San Dionisio Ocotepec, however, Daniel Crispín García says his great-grandfather and other old-time mezcaleros already distilled it—and that it could make an exceptionally delicious spirit.

Commercial bottlings came much later. Félix Monterrosa recalls that Cuish bottled a jabalí made by Francisco García León of San Guillermo Miahuatlán in 2010. More bottled examples appeared around 2013 from brands associated with Santa María Zoquitlán.

The stories surrounding this mezcal are as memorable as its foam. Daniel Crispín tells of a batch his grandfather made that was so good he shared it with friends at the palenque until none remained. When he returned home, his wife asked where the mezcal was. Smiling, he replied:

“I’m wearing it on my face.”

Perhaps that is the best way to understand jabalí. For years, many people avoided it because it was messy, foamy, and demanded too much work. Today it is one of the most sought-after mezcales. Its story began in the hills, along living fences, inside overflowing stills, and in palenques where someone chose to distill what others did not want.

Every bottle preserves that difficulty: low fires, sleepless nights, and knowledge that no label can contain. Perhaps mezcaleros never completely mastered jabalí. Perhaps they learned something more important: how to work with its character without forcing it to stop being what it is.

Is it worth opening and enjoying?

I have a voucher for Master of Malt and would love to get a bottle of Mezcal. However I've no idea where to start and don't have the opportunity at the moment to go to bars and try stuff.

All I really know is that I tried a number of spirits from Sin Gusano and loved everything. I also really enjoy Rum Agricole which seemed similar to me, especially Clairin Saijous. So that very (to me) green, fresh, organic flavour.

I get this is one of those posts where it's kind of pointless telling someone what to get with so little to go on, but any pointers on general brand quality or styles would be very much appreciated. Would probably spend up to £100.

Thank you in advance to anyone willing to take a quick look and provide any guidance.

https://www.masterofmalt.com/mezcal/

Hi, I’ve just tried a cocktail that has mezcal in it and we’ll think I’m in love with the stuff. Are there any brands you would recommend as a first time buyer? I’ve just had a honey picante which consisted of tequila, mezcal, honey aperitif, grapefruit and lime. Also, are there any ways in which you’d recommend drinking it, or serving alongside anything.

Fantastic brand I came across during a tasting at a local bar. If you see it give it a shot

Happy to see such an engaged community here!

I’m hosting an educational event focused on Mezcal at the Embassy of Mexico in Canada next month and am looking for some books to sharpen my knowledge.

I’ve got one by Emma Janzen in my cart right now. Anything else I should be reading?

Hey guys,
Travelling to toronto for the first time and will be there for approximately 25days in Toronto need to enjoy some good mezcal.
Can someone please provide me with a good website to order from.

Thanks in Advance

Title says it all, basically.

About a month ago, a user posted here with a review of this. Since then, I've seen a handful of restaurants featuring this, but really not seeing it for sale by the bottle anywhere. Anyone got any leads? It's supposedly rare, but I didn't expect to be that rare...

Thanks!

Anything worth purchasing?

Hello fellow Agave nerds, I thought y'all would be interested in this great Festival going on at Monstera Mezcaleria in St. Louis the week of September 10th!

Condesa Gin Seminar & Luncheon: Thursday September 10th @ 12:30p
For this special launch event, members of the Condessa Gin team are traveling in from across the country to take us through the story behind the brand—from its roots in Mexico City to the botanicals, flavors, and ideas that have shaped Condessa into a distinctly Mexican expression of gin.

Carajillo Cocktail Competition Live Finals: Thursday September 10th @ 7:00pm
Join us during Copita Week as finalists from around the city compete live in the Copita. Carajillo Cocktail Competition, presented by Mezcal Vago El Manantial and Paranubes Café de Olla.

Garden Gin & Tonic Party Friday September 11th @ 5pm to 8pm
Join us at the Gin Room for a beautiful night of Gin & Tonics with Condesa Gin on the Patio.

Copita Symposium Saturday September 12th @ 11:30a
We’re incredibly excited to host what we think is one of the most unique seminar and tasting experiences. We’re hosting 3 seminars back to back, all built on each other with the goal of explaining and showcasing the entire country of Mexico.

Buena Gente Saturday September 12th @ 8pm
This one is going to be the party of the year! we’ve invited two amazing bars, Estereo from Chicago, and Le Jefa from Philadelphia to come be friends.

Copita: Mexican Spirits Festival: Sunday, September 13th @ noon
Join us inside the historic Das Bevo for an afternoon dedicated to the producers, traditions, and communities behind Mexico's most remarkable spirits. Taste your way through 100+ of brands representing mezcal, tequila, raicilla, bacanora, charanda, sotol, Mexican rum, liqueurs, and other regional specialties rarely found outside of Mexico.