Typically, a vertical tasting consists of three (or more) different batches of the same product. The concept of a vertical tasting was first introduced to me at King Bee in Austin, TX. King Bee has done some great vertical tastings in the past, and my first experience was a Rey Campero vertical tasting, which included […]
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September 17, 2019 marks the 3rd anniversary of Mezcal Reviews. It seems like it was just yesterday that Tyler and I were sketching out our plans for the site on a piece of white lined paper, sipping Alipus San Luis in my living room. So much has happened in mezcal since then, but as Spock […]
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We first wrote about Cinco Sentidos (5 Sentidos) last year in our blog post Cinco Sentidos and El Destilado. Jason, the co-founder of both the El Destilado restaurant and the Cinco Sentidos brand, has a knack for building relationships with producers who operate in some of the most remote regions of Oaxaca and beyond. The […]
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It was the summer of 2016, a few months before launching Mezcal Reviews. Jonny and I met after work at The Austin Shaker, a local bottle shop, to browse their mezcal selection. This was part of our “research phase” before launching the website. We chatted a bit with Kiki, the co-owner, who was eager to […]
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The legend of Eduardo “Lalo” Angeles is growing quickly. His mezcals have been highly sought after in Oaxaca for many years and his personal brand, Lalocura, is quickly becoming one of the more well-acclaimed mezcals available on the international market. I’m not sure when Tyler and I first heard of Lalo. His name came up […]
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Photographer, mixologist, chef, promoter, traveler, cultural ambassador, Instagram superstar…. Omar Alonso covers a lot of ground, and the Oaxacking moniker, for which he’s most well-known, seems to capture all his different personas. For those unfamiliar with him, a good place to start is his Oaxacking Instagram, which features some of the best photos, videos, and […]
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What if I told you one of the most popular mezcal tour guides in Oaxaca, Mexico was a retired lawyer from Canada? Well, it’s true and his name is Alvin Starkman. He is well-respected in the mezcal community and has a stellar TripAdvisor rating. Ever since Jonny, our friends, and I got into mezcal we […]
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We get a lot of questions in our inbox, and though we try to answer all of them individually, we hope this post helps to answer some of the most common questions we hear. The main differences between mezcal and tequila have been outlined by a few other blogs in the past, and they were […]
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For our fourth blind tasting blog, we decided to blind taste eight different mezcals made from agave Cuixe. Similar to agave Madrecuishe, agave Cuixe is popular for use in mezcal. Agave Cuixe mezcals are often made from wild-harvested agaves (though they can be cultivated) and tend to be less sweet and have earthy and grassy […]
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This is a guest blog post from our friend Alvin Starkman, M.A., J.D. Over the past dozen years I have played a part in the development of a number of brands of mezcal distilled in Oaxaca; for the domestic Mexican market, but mainly for export to the US, South Africa, Germany, the UK and Italy, […]
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Mezcal Reviews turned two years old in September 2018 so naturally we decided to throw a party to celebrate. Jonny and I dug into our personal mezcal collections and created a tasting of 7 unique flights with 3 mezcals per flight. We wanted it to be a celebration first and a tasting second; we arranged […]
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San Francisco, California is known for its year-round fog, the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, antique cable cars, and colorful Victorian houses. It’s also the most expensive city to live comfortably in the United States. But don’t let that cause you any discomfort because San Francisco is one of the best places in the United States to […]
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