Mexico's most famous spirit, and its artisanal cousin mezcal, have enjoyed wild popularity in recent years - but there could be trouble ahead. Plus: what I've been drinking in Mexico City this week
Very late catching up other this article but fascinating stuff. I wrote about the celeb driven Tequila boom back in 2013 for the Indy https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/sip-don-t-slam-tequila-as-it-was-meant-to-be-8859303.html. The piece is most memorable for me because I got to speak to Cleo Rocos (a childhood crush) and then subsequently go on a tequila crawl of Brighton with her. I also had to do a 5 minute phoner with rapper Xzibit which my wife found hilarious for some reason and didn't stop ragging me about it for months: 'How's your nate Xzibhit'. As though me, a middle aged white man dressed mostly by M&S could never be friends with a hip hop artist from Detroit.
Love this piece, and agree with you that Tequila (and Mezcal) are offering wonderful new avenues for exploration. At the same time, there's a really interesting tension (I think) between growing demand for premium stuff and huge surpluses of unsold mid- and lower-tier stuff. Spotted this article in the FT over Christmas about a "lake" of surplus tequila in Mexico.
An excellent source of artisanal mezcal here is Sin Gusano , the owner is a true aficionado and I have shelves of mezcal here now as a result
A really informative piece for someone like me, who knows nothing about tequila or mezcal.
Very late catching up other this article but fascinating stuff. I wrote about the celeb driven Tequila boom back in 2013 for the Indy https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/sip-don-t-slam-tequila-as-it-was-meant-to-be-8859303.html. The piece is most memorable for me because I got to speak to Cleo Rocos (a childhood crush) and then subsequently go on a tequila crawl of Brighton with her. I also had to do a 5 minute phoner with rapper Xzibit which my wife found hilarious for some reason and didn't stop ragging me about it for months: 'How's your nate Xzibhit'. As though me, a middle aged white man dressed mostly by M&S could never be friends with a hip hop artist from Detroit.
Thanks Andy! I talked to Cleo by phone - would love to have done a bar crawl with her!
Really keen to make sure I try a Michelada in 2025. Weirdly yours is the second mention I’ve seen of it in one day. Odd how that happens.
Someone else just said that to me! Do it!
Love this piece, and agree with you that Tequila (and Mezcal) are offering wonderful new avenues for exploration. At the same time, there's a really interesting tension (I think) between growing demand for premium stuff and huge surpluses of unsold mid- and lower-tier stuff. Spotted this article in the FT over Christmas about a "lake" of surplus tequila in Mexico.
https://www.ft.com/content/f4f7e557-d480-4b8d-a401-720476966703
And then there are all of the stories about surplus wine in Bordeaux and elsewhere in France.
Doesn't in any way change what you've said, which I very much like and agree with. I just think the tension is interesting.