I sold the bar after my daughter was born, but if I were to partake, it would be Coyote Sotol Chihuahua or Fortaleza Añejo.

A good sotol is always worth enjoying. Definitely not appreciated enough yet in the US.

This guy?

Don Julio Blanco

Sotol and Bacanora are gaining ground here in AZ. BTW, I'm kinda surprised to see a KY drinker enjoying the fine agave stuff.

I personally enjoyed agave spirits and whisk(e)ys, but I was a rarity. Most either liked a specific type of whiskey or agave, not common for folks to like both.

No tekillya for me please. Smell of it is nasty to me.  So to honor Cinco de Mayo I'm drinking Modello Negra.

Every group of people in history that had access to sugars fermented or distilled something. It is the worlds history and the great common theme of all of mankind. I like to appreciate all of them and savor the work and history behind the spirits.

El Jimador  

Awesome, thanks for the reply I'll take a look for some of those on my next trip, enjoying my departure from my usual whiskey or scotch.

1800 Silver

Miller Lite, here.

100% agree

Tequila is a far superior spirit than bourbon/whiskey.

Me too. Excellent recipe, much better than premix. Margarita salt also helps. Don't forget to run a lime wedge around the rim before you salt it.

The beauty of bourbon was that the laws around it created a minimum level of quality that we could expect. The problem with bourbon is that those laws created limits on how it was made to such an extent that you couldn't experiment. This has left the entire category a little boring.

Everytime someone makes a margarita with margarita mix God gives Hillary another year.



I'm making ones my wife'll drink too so I'm doing

2 oz Tequilla
.75 Cointreau
.75 Lime Juice
.5 Simple Syrup

I copied this conversation WOAFP and I were having over in the wine thread ....

Ok I opened two bottles of my initial foray back into Mescal. Both Del Maguey. The 100% Tobala ($120) and Vida ($40). I don’t have either the palate or dialect of most of you folks - so your going to get a working mans description.  

I began with the Vida. As recommended in an earlier post, I did a small “rinse” or two to soften the bite - it’s been a LONG time since I’ve drank anything neat. And a bite it has....!  And that bite returns after the actual liquor is swallowed. Nice body to it, and VERY nice smoke flavor - like a good charbroil. Some other flavors, but I’m not that knowledge moi able - yet. I had to calm it all down with a slice of orange and small sips.

On to the Tobala. First smell reminded me of a top notch tequila. A small sip and its apparent why its 3-times the money. Almost none of that harsh ethanol bite. Smooth all the way through. Thinner body and not much of the smoke but a much more earth / herbal flavor like a slightly sweet pepper. Not dry at all and again smooth from start to finish.

I have to say I like the full body of the Vida. The smoke flavor lingered well after dinner. I could see sitting with this bottle and a really fine cigar well into the evening. (I may have to take up smoking...lol). If it didn’t have such a strong bite...... all this flavor is very nearly overshadowed.

I look forward to trying some other brands / recipes of Mezcal.




So vida is actually interesting. It was never intended/curated to be drank neat. during the cocktail boom in the early 2000's, bartenders kept wanting to make mezcal drinks, but the high prices just made it unreasonable. So they kept asking del maguey to come to market with something cheaper for cocktails. Well to meet this, vida was curated to have exaggerated flavors that would still scream "MEZCAL" in a cocktail , but would still be affordable. To do this, they still use espadin agave, but the roast it in a larger oven, and include some green and wet wood. This leaves a huge amount of the wood smoke coming through. then instead of a tahona to crush they use a stainless shredder to be more efficient and are a little looser with the cuts from the still. It was never meant to be fantastic, but meant to be widely available, cheap, and capture the flavors of mezcal well enough to stand up to sweeteners and other things in cocktails. 

Tobala, is super cool. They are tiny plants with a super low sugar yield. They can take almost 20 years to mature and still yield a pina only the size of a basketball. A ton of work goes into those, which is why the price tag is a little rough.

I had read about the Tobala maturing slowly and yielding smaller amounts of product ....giving it a exotic allure. The promise of a fruity sweeter drink was what led me to this bottle.

Your explanation of the Vida origin gave me a chuckle..... I guess I’ haven’t evolved too far from the Cuervo Gold days...  Seems I have a lot of ground to cover to get to discern the milder flavors of the finer Mezcal.

Still the strong flavor reminded me of that liitle clay bottle of yesteryear and the mystery of the drink from “the land of Don Juan“.

I'm keep meaning to grab some sotol.



El Jimador in my mixed drinks.

Herradura in my sipping drinks

Let's talk about that nice knife.

@Star_Scream

nice blade amigo

how does it compare to the spydiechef?

The Spyderco Drunken is a stunner. I love it. Similar to the spydiechef and really nice for cutting up food

But let's keep on the topic of Tequila.

My wife loves big peaty smoky Islays. Any recommendations on a tequila for her to sip?


Here's where I started my torrid affair with the Drunken. It's quickly becoming a favorite


The next four pages have my ramblings

The common answer to your question is mezcal (Del Maguey Vida being the most common) instead of tequila, but you'll find that a lot of tequila distilleries that use the tahona wheel have some smokiness.

ETA - If your wife enjoys mezcal, Del Maguey Chichicapa isn't too hard to find, is pretty damn good, and the smokiness doesn't reach "burnt tire" level people use to describe Vida (which I personally love but to each their own).

I'm a huge fan of huge peated islays, and can say that good mezcal was definitely a bigger draw to me than tequila. I love good tequila, but it's much more akin to highland or speyside single malts in its sweetness and the citrus forward flavors. I would definitely encourage you to have her try some good mezcals or sotols and have a good feeling she will like them. I will disagree with my good man above me. I probably wouldn't recommend vida for sipping neat. It was originally curated for cocktails and isn't really well balanced for sipping neat. It's far from awful, but there are much better out there. A good, readily available mezcal from Del maguey that a lot of people use as their first "real" mezcal is chichicapa. It runs around $65-70 and may be something she loves.

We rocked the Herradura. It's an old favorite here

Planned to have a little of my full collection.  Ended up sipping vago espadin, siempre sotol, and some blanco 46. Left everything else in the cabinet.

Thanks guys! I'll have to grab some for mother's day instead of the Ardbeg Uidigeal (sp)

Late to the thread but I got shitty on May 4 with Moscow Mules and bourbon. I didn't make it to Drinkville on the 5th

I can verify that Casamigos Reposado is nasty swill.

One man's boring is another man's consistency.

But, as you know, there are many great spirits throughout the world for those who like to experiment and expand their palate to different flavor profiles.

Getting back into agave spirits is tough for me since I was young and dumb when I started drinking it, that just the smell can make me gag from all the bad experiences that are associated with it in my memory bank. I didn't respect it back then and now mostly stick to beer, bourbon, and red wine.

I respect that 100%. If you told my wife 10 years ago that I would love agave spirits, she would laugh at you. I had one of those religious moments "please god, i'll be good if you just make it stop" behind on a jeep on fourth of july thanks to a bottle of cuervo gold, and i couldn't even be around people drinking margaritas or anything. The Vago mexicano changed that for me, and has now allowed me to get back into good tequilas as well.