Ten Mezcals To Drink Right Now (Well, Not All At Once...)

When Robb Report asked me to do a round-up of the best mezcals, I had some catching up to do. I hadn’t written much about the category for several years, and while I do enjoy a good mezcal, I hadn’t kept up with the latest must-try brands. And there are a lot of them. So I did what I often do as a hard-hitting investigative journalist — I went on social media and said, “Mezcal. Help.” Or something to that effect. But really, as I’ve found before, that’s all it takes. Agave spirits enthusiasts, brand owners, publicists, fellow journalists, all were eager not just to suggest brands to write up but to really immerse me in the world of mezcal and beyond.

One of the best immersive experiences I’ve had in recent memory — although I must say my memories of this one are foggy — was with Arik Torren of Fidencio, who also works with a couple of other brands. He came to my apartment wheeling a small trunk full of samples, not just of mezcal but of raicilla, sotol… I mean, this was a deep dive. We went through, I believe, 25 samples in about two hours, and thankfully I recorded the whole thing because I was in no shape to take notes by the end. But it was amazing, and I didn’t just learn a lot, I had a great time, too.

I had a few other, um, educational experiences in the works. But then Covid-19 shut the city down. Face-to-face meetings became impossible. Offices shut down. Writing about mezcal suddenly seemed both less important and more important than it had a few weeks before. And, well, check out the article at Robb Report. It’s a complicated category, way too complicated to even touch on all the basics in an article like this one. But I think it’s a pretty good primer if you’re looking to add a few choice bottles to your collection. Comments section is on if you feel otherwisd.