FIX MY DRINK
Each week in this space, we better our beverages together. Today: The odd magic of mezcal
You might make other drinking plans for Cinco de Mayo this year, but it’s increasingly likely that mezcal, Mexico’s rough-and-ready, love-it-or-hate-it spirit, will seek out your table anyway. Ron Cooper, founder of Del Maguey mezcals, told attendees at a dinner at Toronto’s Reposado this week that he believes mezcal is magic. “You don’t find mezcal. Mezcal finds you,” he said. Be prepared.
Whatever mystical seek-and-destroy powers mezcal may possess, they are puny compared to the stopping power of Canadian liquor bureaucrats. No doubt spooked by a flavour profile that haters might describe as a mixture of tequila, gasoline and bear spray, the cautious buyers who decide what we are allowed to drink delayed introducing a respectable variety of mezcal into Canada for years. One provincial liquor board justified this to me in a 2012 email by noting that mezcal is a “tiny category,” which prompts the question of how we’re supposed to demonstrate enthusiasm for a product we’re mostly unable to buy. Magically, a mere seven or eight years after mezcal mania gripped London and New York, some Canadian liquor boards’ anti-mezcal fear is finally relenting. Search your local store and there’s a good chance there’s at least one brand to try — if you dare.
I often refer to mezcal as tequila’s country cousin. Like tequila, mezcal is made by fermenting agave (albeit a different species, agave americana in this case, known in Spanish as “maguey”). Unlike the tequila industry, which is big business, mezcal is still essentially a backwoods affair involving haphazard-looking processes.
Think clay and bamboo stills rather than copper in some cases, plastic buckets, a laissezfaire approach to stray microorganisms in the brew; even burros pulling stone wheels to crush the charbroiled maguey.
For devotees of slow food, Cooper said, mezcal could be seen as slow liquor. His company sources and distributes what it calls single-village mezcals — mezcals that it finds in obscure corners of Oaxaca, Mexico, which are made using traditional methods and then bottled for gringo consumption. Each Del Maguey mezcal represents someone’s local tradition. Thanks to Del Maguey, Ontario bars and restaurants will soon be able to offer pechuga, a form of mezcal that involves an extra distillation with fruit and a raw chicken breast added for flavour. (Alcohol is a disinfectant.) The stuff is weirdly tasty, with hints of apple, bell pepper and Oxo cube.
Not that I need to dissuade you from jumping right in, but: When drinking mezcal, take tiny sips, never shots. Cooper explained that toasting one another somewhat elaborately is the way things are done in Oaxaca. No doubt the tradition grew up around the need to take it slowly. A cocktail is another way to smooth out the delivery. Catherine MacFadyen of Reposado created a lovely spiced hibiscus punch that would be worth doing for a crowd. Get the recipe online at nationalpost.com/life.