Mezcal 101: An Introduction to the Mexican Spirit

Mezcal is a precise word. Mexico's standard NOM-070-SCFI-2016 defines it as a Mexican distilled spirit made from 100% maguey or agave, distilled from the fermented juices of mature, cooked agaves harvested inside the denomination-of-origin territory.

That sentence holds three separate ideas: the plant, the process and the place.

The plant

There is no single mezcal agave. A 2022 scientific review counts more than fifty species in production, some farmed and some gathered wild. That is why two mezcals can differ as much as wines from two different grapes.

The place

The denomination of origin covers whole states (Oaxaca, Zacatecas, Durango, Guerrero and San Luis Potosí) and selected municipalities in others, including Michoacán, Puebla, the State of Mexico, Tamaulipas, Sinaloa and Guanajuato. The standard was first published in Mexico's Official Gazette in 1994, and the territory has grown since.

Three categories

The standard sorts mezcal by process. Mezcal allows industrial equipment such as autoclaves and continuous columns. Mezcal artesanal is cooked in pit or masonry ovens and distilled over direct fire. Mezcal ancestral narrows it further: pit oven, milling by mallet or stone mill, and direct-fire distillation in clay or wooden pots only.

The classes

Each mezcal also has a class: blanco or joven (unrested), madurado en vidrio (over 12 months in glass), reposado (2 to 12 months in wood), añejo (over 12 months in wood), abocado con (ingredients added directly) and destilado con (distilled together with ingredients such as fruit or meat).

With those three coordinates, plant, place and process, any label starts to read clearly.