Los Nahaules

Del Maguey Acquired by Pernod Ricard!!!

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Wow.  Whoa.  Holy shit.  This week saw HUGE news in the mezcal world.  Del Maguey Mezcal was acquired (a majority stake) by spirits industry giant Pernod Ricard.  It is shocking, exciting, and troublesome to many as well.  I’ll take the first two and pass on the third – not troubling to me at all.

 

First, a little background.  Del Maguey, and it’s artist founder Ron Cooper, is the pioneering brand which brought the first premium mezcal to the U.S. in the mid-to-late 1990’s.   Prior to the beginning of Ron’s evangelical campaign, mezcal was thought of as this worm-infused, gag-inducing swill only a frat boy could love.  Del Maguey was largely alone in this pursuit for as long as ten years.  It was not until the late 2000’s when other premium brands like Ilegal, Los Nahuales, Fidencio, and Pierde Almas, among others, began to show up in the U.S.

While certainly those brands, and a few others, have helped drive mezcal to where it is today, Del Maguey clearly got it started, and they are the number one selling mezcal in the U.S as a result.  They have an army of industry supporters who prosthelytize the wonders of mezcal and Del Maguey, which has been awesome for the mezcal category.  Their leadership, passion, and education-driven approach to mezcal has helped bring it to the forefront of the artisanal world of spirits.  Sometimes I find the brand approaches mezcal with a bit too much reverence, but I cannot argue with the results.  I too hold mezcal in high regard, but this is still booze after all!  If we’re on a mission from god, let’s make it the Blues Brothers version.  Mezcal is fun and sexy, cool and exotic, and an amazing tradition-laden spirit, so I don’t get too carried away.

And Del Maguey is REALLY good mezcal, especially their Vinos de Mezcal series and Single Village line-up.  Their cocktail-oriented Vida is likely the main driver of their revenue, and no, it is not as good as their single village line-up, but it is also costs $35-$40 a bottle and works well in cocktails.

So that all said, it is a shock to see them sell the brand.  The word from Ron is nothing will change in the way they operate the business, and they will continue to support and work with their palenqueros as they always have.  And I have no doubt it is true because I know he and his team care so much about mezcal and what it represents.  They would not do a deal with someone who did not subscribe to their world view, which is why this is not troubling to me in the least.  Plus, I am a capitalist so more power to them.  Del Maguey will now have more money and resources, and they will continue to produce their mezcal in an honest, sustainable way.  For another take on this move, my friends at Mezcalistas posted THIS.

While Del Maguey is the first brand to be sold to one of the large spirit companies, there has been other action in the category.  Bacardi bought a minority stake in Ilegal in February and Diageo has a distribution deal (and likely some equity stake or options) with Mezcal Union.  Cuervo also has their own brand Creyente in the U.S. market, which they claim is made in an artisanal way, though I cannot say it tastes like an artisanal mezcal (I am stretching to find the nicest words I can).  Nevertheless, the large spirit companies are approaching mezcal in the right way for the most part.  They seem to recognize this is an artisanal product which cannot be industrialized.

I have a lot more to say on this subject and what it means for the future of mezcal.  So this post is just a preview as spurred on by this huge industry news.  You may not care about what else I am thinking, or you may be interested to know that I have already written a chapter on this very subject for my new book, the Revised Second Edition of Holy Smoke!  It’s Mezcal!

Yes, I am revising the self-proclaimed best selling mezcal book of all time, Holy Smoke! It’s Mezcal!  Is it really the best selling mezcal book of all time?  Well, I am not really sure but it’s possible.  And there really are not many books on mezcal so it can’t be that far off.  I hope to have this ready to bring to market sometime this Fall.

So that’s it for now.  Big news for the mezcal category and its continued growth.  Thanks for reading and as always, drink mezcal!

Mezcal Brands Found in the U.S.

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Updated October 2016

Bottle ShotSadly, it has been a few years since I did a deep dive and thorough update to this list.  Yes, I have added a brand here and there, but I have not scoured the web in a few years to see what is really out there.  And man have times changed!

When I last took a hard look, there were about 70 mezcal brands to be found in the U.S.  Now I count 120+!  Wow.  Further, a few years ago there were around 50 brands that were traveling in the upper end of the market, and that has now risen to almost 90 brands in what I consider to be in the premium sector.

I used to have them all, and I can no longer say that.  In my recent research, I found many brands I had never even heard of at premium prices and occasionally at premium packaging.  A lot of these are definitely under the radar, which means they are not active on social media or apparently in the active promotion of their brand.  I know because I follow this stuff.  Also, when new brands are coming to the market they often issue press releases, and many contact me and are generous enough to send me a bottle – I am grateful every time!  But many of the new brands below have done nothing to announce their presence in the U.S. market, so that is why I say under the radar.  And if that is what they want to do, no problem!  But I am curious about a good number of them and will be making some new purchases for sure.

You will find a lot of these brands if you read MY BOOK (shameless self-promotion perhaps, but hey, the blog is free so this is my form of selling ad space!).  I talk about all these brands in greater depth, plus I take a detailed look at how the many varieties of agave impact the flavor of a mezcal – much like grapes are to wine, agave is to mezcal.  The book is Holy Smoke! It’s Mezcal! and it is on Amazon.  Notice the cool cover shot to the right.  Buy a copy – I promise you won’t be disappointed!  Now back to our regularly scheduled program…

So here is my currently assembled list of the brands that can be found in the U.S.  The list is organized from top to bottom by the brands I am most familiar with, which means among other things, I can find them and drink them regularly, I read about them, and/or they are actively promoting their brands through social media, etc.  As the list progresses, many of these I have never tried and never seen other than on a website.  So they are mainly pretty obscure but some of them look quite interesting with a price point to match.

Toward the bottom of the list, there is a bunch of crap (that usually stirs up some controversy) – a bunch of industrial mezcals and some random stuff, many of which I have tried, hence that is what I call this part of the list crap.  If you are looking for something good, stay higher on the list and do some research.  When you see a mezcal for under $30, it is rarely good (though there are exceptions).  Comments like that usually draw out some criticism that I am being elitist or worse, but it is simply a reality.  It is VERY EXPENSIVE to produce a good, artisanal mezcal.  Just a fact.

But if you think something toward the back of the pack is good, first you should drink it, and then let me know.  I am always happy to learn and reassess.  With that, here is what I have….

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How Do You Know A Quality Mezcal? What is Traditional Mezcal? What is Artisanal Mezcal? Do the Distinctions Matter?

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There is a debate going around in the mezcal community (yes, there is a community for pretty much everything – are you a member of the A-Rod’s Homeopathic Treatments Club?) about what the definition is of Traditional Mezcal.  I think I know where this started, and I am certain it will not end here, but I wanted to throw my hat in the ring on this debate.

For the most part, I think this whole debate is a problem of nomenclature.  The nomenclature part is simple:  as soon as you say one thing is “traditional”, that means everything else is not.  The problem is that many news outlets, websites, and blogs picked up a recent piece of literature on traditional mezcal, and they are publishing it as gospel.  I think there is more to the story.  Let’s see if we can sort it out. (more…)