Snobbery and aged mezcal: how "Experts" Get it wrong in Oaxaca and around the world

It is an issue that negatively impacts the consumption of mezcal on a day-to-day basis. Many owners and staff of Mexican restaurants, bars, and mezcalerías, in Oaxaca and throughout the rest of Mexico, and indeed around the world, tell customers not to drink barrel-aged mezcal. It does not matter if it is aged (in oak for at least two months) or aged (at least one year); They say don’t do it Even some export brand owners are victims of the misstep. The Mexican agave distillate, mezcal, is the relatively high-alcohol liquor that has taken the global liquor-consuming community by storm since the “mezcal boom.” The craze began around 2005, and then became a reality a decade later.

People who should know more and who are supposedly motivated in their entrepreneurial efforts, at least to some extent, to promote the mezcal industry, are simply trying to increase their customers’ perception of them as experts in agave distillates. Oaxaca is the southern state of Mexico that produces more than 85% of the country’s mezcal. Fans and novices alike flock to Oaxaca to learn more and pay tribute. Therefore, it must be up to the experts, particularly in Oaxaca, who are trusted by the consuming public, to give the arriving pilgrims the correct goods. Many do not.

Typically, one finds three reasons to discourage drinkers from drinking aged mezcal:

• “Añejo mezcal is not traditional.” How many generations or hundreds of years ago should one consider agave distillate as “traditional”, given that oak barrels have been used to store and transport mezcal probably since shortly after the arrival of the Spanish in what is now Mexico , certainly since the eighteenth century?

• “I have not yet come across a good reposado or añejo in the barrel.” How can that really be, other than someone wanting to impose their subjective preference on others, as there are brands that have serious and well thought out aging programs? For example, aging for six months in a Kentucky bourbon cask, then two years in a French chardonnay cask.

• “Aged mezcal changes and masks the flavor, aroma and natural nuances that vary according to the species and subspecies of the agave, and we must want to retain and appreciate those unique qualities and differences.”

It is the third rationale that is the most troublesome, possibly simply absurd, and here is why.

In a typical setting, on an evening in the city one enters a mezcal tasting room, bar or mezcalería, or Mexican restaurant with a good complement of agave distillates. It is based on the advice of the waiter or waiter; especially those relatively new to the spirit or who just want to try different products. Your server might say something like “try this tobalá, it’s quite herbal”, or “how about a floral tepeztate”, or “I think you might like this somewhat sweet karwinskii from the Miahuatlán district in Oaxaca.” Fair enough. But then the problem begins.

That same “expert” who refuses to even talk about aged or rested because they alter the unique nuance imparted by the particular variety of agave, will suggest a breast sprat (which may cost twice as much as karwinskii). That breast has had the natural flavor of sprats dramatically altered not only by the chicken breast, but also by a plethora of fruits, herbs, and spices; apple, orange, cinnamon, guava, pineapple, almond, banana, anise, rice, apricot, and sometimes more. Are you not drinking a spirit drink whose natural flavor has been altered much more drastically than if it had been aged for six months in a barrel of bourbon? And while the history of chicken breasts dates back perhaps to the 1930s in the state of Oaxaca, and to the 19th century in other parts of Mexico, the tradition of barrel aging predates both by 100 years, if not more. Chicken breasts are probably a much more recent and much less traditional phenomenon than rested and aged ones.

Then your server in that tasting room encourages you to compare two mezcals of the same subspecies, one distilled in clay and the other in copper, suggesting that you can detect the difference in flavors. Subsequently, the server could offer a mezcal fermented in a cowhide followed by the next in a 1000-liter pine slat tank. And then two mezcals from the same agave vartietal from the same traditional distillery could be offered, one in which the succulent has been crushed by hand and the other by metal blades. Why then would she not “allow” him to compare the elderly with the unaged? I would suggest that it is likely to be snobbery, plain and simple, without any other reasonable reasoning (except perhaps the exercise that represents a means by which the establishment, led by experts, tries to rationalize its haughty prices).

Here is the problem. If one really wants to help consumers distinguish subtle differences in flavors, aromas, and nuances, shouldn’t we be testing just mezcal in which the agave has been steamed in a sealed brick room or in an autoclave (iron chamber )? Traditional cooking dictates baking the agave in an airtight earth oven on at the very least rocks, and you guessed it, firewood. If you bake something in a sealed chamber for five days over wood, the type of wood used will inevitably affect the flavor of what you are baking, including agave; mesquite, oak, eucalyptus, etc., etc., etc. The experts just want to promote traditional mezcal, so how do they rationalize, on the one hand, wanting the natural flavors to come out and, on the other, baking in a “traditional” oven?

There are anti-aging brand owners who profess to want to expose fans or potential fans to traditionally made mezcal. They claim that mezcal should be stored only in glass or stainless steel, neither of which is “traditional,” certainly less stainless. The same entrepreneurs will promote their products by storing mezcal in clay, say six months before bottling, to give the consuming public something a little different — but of course not so different, as in oak. Yes, clay was used eons ago for storage and transportation, so perhaps we should all go back to having our clay-aged mezcal. The problem is that glass and stainless steel alter natural hues much less than clay; however, they are relatively recent forays into the industry.

Epilogue

We should promote mezcal to all future fans, and this means all mezcal. Many visitors to Oaxaca come with a plan to distribute the liquor or open a mezcalería in their home countries outside of North America. If we tell them they shouldn’t be drinking or selling aged mezcal, they might buy that line from the “experts” who are feeding them half-truths, and quite possibly creating confusion in the minds of those who pay careful consideration to what they hear. . Are we not cutting off the potential to attract new spirit drinkers, such as those drinkers who gravitate towards single malt scotch or bourbon or whiskey? More importantly, the justification for telling people what mezcal to drink and what not to drink is highly flawed.