The Mezcal Experience

‘Before mezcal I knew tequila. We danced together and had a good time. Then I found mezcal and we not only danced but we talked and talked. As a lover of whisky, mezcal was an easy step for me. And Tom is the person to tell you all about it.’ Thomasina Miers, author and chef-owner of Wahaca restaurant chain ‘Thomas, aside from having one of the early great beards of NYC, played some of the finest music ever to crawl into my drunken ears. He retains the same intimidating and generous approach to mezcal: know everything worth knowing about a subject, avoid the garbage, love it, and share.’ James Murphy, LCD Soundsystem ‘Before mezcal I knew tequila. We danced together and had a good time. Then I found mezcal and we not only danced but we talked and talked. As a lover of whisky, mezcal was an easy step for me. And Tom is the person to tell you all about it.’ Thomasina Miers, author and chef-owner of Wahaca restaurant chain ‘Thomas, aside from having one of the early great beards of NYC, played some of the finest music ever to crawl into my drunken ears. He retains the same intimidating and generous approach to mezcal: know everything worth knowing about a subject, avoid the garbage, love it, and share.’ James Murphy, LCD Soundsystem The definitive guide to Mexico's best kept secret; Mezcal. Unlike its infamous offspring tequila, until recently you would have had to take a trip to Mexico to try this intriguing spirit. But with ‘Mezcalerias’ popping up everywhere from New York City to London, Tokyo and beyond, and mezcal increasingly seen on the menus of the most discerning and hippest bars, the agave plant-based alcohol is the cool new drink taking the world by storm. Embark on a regional tour of Mexico and discover local mezcal gems in this illustrated guide to the best 'mezcalerias' (mezcal bars) in the world, then work your way through more than 30 cocktail recipes from the world’s best mezcal bartenders. From backyard heroes to big names, this is a comprehensive guide fwith over 100 varieties of mezcal, complete with a tasting wheel to help explain the subtleties of this intriguing drink and make you a connoisseur in no time.

IACP AWARD WINNER • Indulge your thirst for new ways to enjoy tequila and mezcal with 60+ recipes for agave cocktails from a James Beard Award–nominated author and New York Times spirits writer. From riffs on classics such as the Mezcal Mule and Oaxaca Old-Fashioned to new favorites such as Naked and Famous or Smoke and Ice, discover how to use mezcal and tequila to create cocktails in nearly every classic cocktail formula—from flip to sour to highball—that highlight the smoky, edgy flavors of these unique and popular spirits. Robert Simonson, author of The Old-Fashioned and The Martini Cocktail, covers a broad range of flavors with doable, delicious recipes that are easy to assemble, most only requiring three or four ingredients. This comprehensive, straightforward guide is perfect for tequila and mezcal enthusiasts looking for creative ways to enjoy agave spirits more often and in more varied ways—or for anyone who just likes to drink the stuff.

“This fascinating, well-written book explores how tequila has come to symbolize what it means to be Mexican . . . A must read.” —Choice ¡Tequila! Distilling the Spirit of Mexico traces how and why tequila became Mexico’s national drink and symbol. Starting in Mexico’s colonial era and tracing the drink’s rise through the present day, Marie Sarita Gaytán reveals the formative roles played by some unlikely characters—such as the revolutionary Pancho Villa, who was himself a teetotaler. She also shows how tequila’s cultural status was shaped by US-Mexican relations, the tourism industry, shifting gender roles, technology, regulation, film, music, and literature. Like all stories about national symbols, the rise of tequila forms a complicated, unexpected, and poignant tale. By unraveling its inner workings, Gaytán encourages us to think critically about national symbols more generally—especially the ways they both reveal and conceal—to tell a story about a place, a culture, and a people. In many ways, the story of tequila is the story of Mexico.

NOMINATED FOR THE 2018 JAMES BEARD FOUNDATION AWARD IN BEVERAGES! Emma Janzen is your guide to the bartender's best kept secret, the spirit everyone has been missing out on and it's called Mezcal. See what sets this cousin of tequila apart from the rest of the pack. Produced in Mexico for centuries but little known elsewhere until recent years, mezcal has captured the imagination of spirits enthusiasts with its astonishing complexities. And while big liquor is beginning to jump aboard the bandwagon, most mezcal is still artisanal in nature, produced using small-batch techniques handed down for generations, often with agave plants harvested in the wild. â??Join author Emma Janzen through Mezcal as she presents an engaging primer on all things related to the spirit; its long history, the craft of distilling it, and a thorough guide to many of the most common agaves used in production and how they shape the resulting spirit. In addition, top mezcal bars across the United States and Mexico contribute a selection of nearly fifty cocktails that accentuate its distinguishing qualities. Beautifully produced and authoritatively written, Mezcal is the definitive guide to exploring and unraveling the mysteries of this extraordinary handcrafted spirit. An Editors’ Pick for Amazon Best Books of the month of July 2017.

People are busting out of static residential living and boring corporate serfdom and embracing a new life of freedom, beauty, adventure and joy. The movement is the gastronomad lifestyle - endless travel out of love for food and culture. Instead of living in one place, then becoming an occasional tourist on vacation (where you're on the outside looking in), gastronomads become "temporary locals" wherever they go, immersing themselves in community and culture. But how? The secret is to travel and work at the same time! It's a world of endless possibilities. The gig economy, the sharing economy, the app economy and crowdsourced content - as well as ubiquitous internet and powerful mobile devices - enable almost anyone to live almost anywhere and still build a thriving, exciting and rewarding career. Journalist Mike Elgan has been living and writing about the gastronomad lifestyle for a decade, and shares all his secrets in this surprising book, including how to: pivot your career to become location independent grow your income and shrink your cost of living downsize to a small "home base" and spend half your rent abroad find dream locations to live in explore the world's most amazing food cultures create a new life that brings you joy Going gastronomad is much more than embracing a way of life. It's a state of mind. Whether you're just thinking about traveling more - not as a tourist but as an intentional traveler - or want to quit your job, sell your home and spend the rest of your life exploring the world, this book will transform how you think about travel, food and life itself!

In this groundbreaking and deeply personal book, Ron Cooper—a leading voice in the artisanal mezcal movement, and the person largely responsible for popularizing the spirit in the United States—shares everything he knows about this storied, culturally rich, and now hugely in-demand spirit, along with 40 recipes. In 1990, artist Ron Cooper was collaborating with craftspeople in Oaxaca, Mexico, when he found mezcal—or, as he likes to say, mezcal found him. This traditional spirit was virtually unknown in the United States at the time, and Cooper founded Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal in order to import it. Finding Mezcal recounts Cooper's love affair with the spirit and the people who make it; its meteoric rise in popularity; and the delicate balance between sharing mezcal with the world and facilitating its preservation. Each chapter introduces a new mezcal, its producer, and its place of origin, while also covering mezcal production methods and the botany of the maguey (aka agave) plant, from which mezcal is distilled. Featuring 40 recipes developed for Del Maguey by chefs and bartenders from around the world, the book is copiously illustrated with photographs, as well as Cooper's artwork and that of his friend Ken Price, who illustrated Del Maguey's now-iconic labels.

This important book offers a model to analyze the configurations of reality as manifested in everyday practices of eating and drinking in relation to the development of human subjectivity. The author uses concrete examples from daily life related to eating and drinking habits such as "eating tacos" or "taking a shot of mezcal", to offer an interface of interaction between body/mind and material entities connecting all scales of reality. Borrowing scientific insights from molecular biology and neuroscience, combined with a touch of decolonial spirit, the author examines specific 'processes' and/or 'objects' triggered by eating and drinking events, such as the production of heat as you eat a taco, or the interchange of knowledge while drinking mezcal. The book develops an approach to human subjectivity informed by material and aesthetic encounters beyond the analysis of language, representation, and social structures and aims to contribute to the contemporary landscape of efforts decentering our understanding of both human and non-human affairs. With its multidimensional exploration of our relationship with food, this is thought-provoking reading for scholars and students in critical psychology, philosophy, and the social sciences.

A James Beard Award-nominated bartender explores the history and culture of Latin American spirits in this stunningly photographed travelogue—with 100+ irresistible cocktails featuring tequila, rum, pisco, and more. TALES OF THE COCKTAIL SPIRITED AWARD® WINNER • IACP AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY POPMATTERS “Ivy’s unique combination of taste, talent, and tenacity make her the ideal ‘spirit’ guide.”—Steven Soderbergh, filmmaker, professional drinker, and owner of Singani 63 Through its in-depth look at drinking culture throughout Latin America, this gorgeous book offers a rich cultural and historical context for understanding Latin spirits. Ivy Mix has dedicated years to traveling south, getting to know Latin culture, in part through what the locals drink. What she details in this book is the discovery that Latin spirits echo the Latin palate, which echoes Latin life, emphasizing spiciness, vivaciousness, strength, and variation. After digging into tequila and Mexico's other traditional spirits, Ivy Mix follows the sugar trail through the Caribbean and beyond, winding up in Chile, Peru, and Bolivia, where grape-based spirits like pisco and singani have been made for generations. With more than 100 recipes that have garnered acclaim at her Brooklyn bar, Leyenda, including fun spins on traditional cocktails such as the Pisco Sour, Margarita, and Mojito, plus drinks inspired by Ivy's travels, like the Tia Mia (which combines mezcal, rum, and orange curacao, with a splash of lime and almond orgeat) or the Sonambula (which features jalapeño-infused tequila, lemon juice, chamomile syrup, and a dash of Peychaud's bitters), along with mouthwatering photos and gorgeous travel images, this is the ultimate book on Latin American spirits.