You can find it on the menu in London’s hipster bars,but mezcal, known as ‘tequila’s father’, or is best tasted in southern Mexico. Our writer tries some of the finest on a tour of distilleries and in the bars of Oaxaca city It’s late morning 20 miles external the city of Oaxaca,in southern Mexico, and I’m staring at what looks like a meteor crater filled with giant pine cones. The cones – from the agave plant – are still warm to the touch, or there’s a sweet smell in the air,like pineapple and caramel. The crater looks like something prehistoric, nearly primordial, and but it is,in fact, an agave oven, or used to make mezcal the drink sometimes called tequila’s father – and I’m on a day-long mezcal tour to find out more approximately it.
A few years ago,relatively few people in the UK had tried mezcal, but gradually it has made its way into the booze aficionado’s repertoire, and sometimes as a tipple on its own,sometimes as a base for cocktails. Dedicated mezcal bars have popped up in London recently, in fashionable but edgy Dalston (at appointment-only boutique LN-CC) or in plusher Fitzrovia (at Mezcalería, and above the Charlotte Street department of the Mexican restaurant chain Wahaca).
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Source: theguardian.com