Everything I Got Wrong About Mezcal Until I Drank My Way Across Oaxaca

Before Oaxaca, I thought mezcal was basically smoky tequila. If that’s where you’re starting from too, good… because that’s exactly the assumption Oaxaca takes apart, one tasting at a time.

Oaxaca is Mexico’s mezcal country. The spirit is woven through everything here, and you genuinely can’t understand the place without it. So I did the only responsible thing: I drank my way across the state to figure it out. Here’s what I learned, and where to do it yourself.

First, The Thing Everyone Gets Wrong

Let’s clear this up, because I had it wrong and most people do: mezcal and tequila are not the same thing.

Two big differences. First, geography. Tequila legally has to come from a specific region around the town of Tequila to be called tequila, whereas mezcal can be made across much of Mexico, with Oaxaca as its spiritual home.

Second, and this is the one you taste: that distinctive smokiness. It comes from the way the agave hearts are roasted, often in underground pits, before fermenting and distilling. Tequila doesn’t get that treatment. Mezcal does. It’s why a good mezcal tastes of woodsmoke and earth in a way tequila never will.

Oh, and the bit of folklore you’ll hear everywhere: that you don’t get a hangover from mezcal because it’s pure and organic. I’m not about to put that crazily to the test on your behalf… but let’s just say I was willing to gather some preliminary evidence.

Start In The City: The Mezcalerías

You don’t have to leave Oaxaca city to start your education, and you shouldn’t.

The city is full of mezcalerías: mezcal bars stocked with bottles from producers all across the state, where you can sit and taste your way through the styles without going anywhere near a distillery. One of my favourites is Los Amantes Mezcaleria, which is just around the corner from Oaxaca’s central attractions.

Mezcalerias are the perfect place to begin, because they let you figure out what you actually like… the different agave varieties, the range from bright and grassy to deep and smoky, before you commit to a day out in the countryside.

A copita here, a copita there, and you start to build a map of your own taste. Consider it research.

Then Go To The Source: Santiago Matatlán

Once you’ve got the taste for it, get in a car. The real pilgrimage is out to Santiago Matatlán, about an hour from the city down Highway 190, past the ruins at Mitla.

The town doesn’t undersell itself: a big sign at the entrance declares it the World Capital of Mezcal, and it earns it: this sleepy rural place is home to an astonishing number of palenques (mezcal distilleries), and the whole town more or less revolves around making the stuff. This is where you see how it’s actually done. The agave, the roasting pits, the fermentation, the distillation, rather than just drinking the finished article.

I went to a palenque called Gracias a Dios, which translates to “Thank God,” which felt about right by that point in the day. Thank God for the mezcal. It’s run by the Hernández family, who’ve been making it for generations, and they walk you through the entire process before sitting you down to taste.

The One That Made Me Get It

If there was a single moment the penny dropped, it was their espadín, aged three months in American oak barrels.

Most mezcal you’ll try is unaged and clear, which translates to bright, smoky and intense on the palate. But this one had been mellowed in the barrel just long enough to turn a touch sweeter, with these lovely caramelly overtones rounding off the smoke. It was, honestly, the kind of mezcal you could sip all day.

That was the moment mezcal stopped being “smoky tequila” in my head and became its own thing entirely: a spirit with as much range and craft as good whisky or wine.

How To Do Your Own Mezcal Day

A few honest pointers if you want to do this properly:

Do both the city and the source. The mezcalerías in town are brilliant for tasting widely; the trip out to Matatlán is what makes you understand it. They’re different halves of the same experience.

You’ll need a car or a tour for Matatlán. It’s about an hour out, and given the whole point is tasting, a tour means nobody has to be the designated driver… which, frankly, is the sensible call on a mezcal day. Plenty run from Oaxaca city and take in the agave fields, a palenque or two, and lunch.

Go slow. Good mezcal is for sipping, not shooting — “para todo mal, mezcal; para todo bien, también,” as they say. It’s a spirit that rewards taking your time, exactly like the place it comes from.

I came to Oaxaca thinking mezcal was a novelty. I left understanding it’s one of the great craft spirits of the world, and that you really do have to come here, to the smoke and the agave fields and the family palenques, to properly get it.

Salud.