The Rise of Mezcal: From Oaxacan Villages to European Bars

Walk into a serious cocktail bar in Madrid, Lisbon, or Barcelona today and look at the back bar. A decade ago you might have found one bottle of mezcal, usually a token, often a brand built more on packaging than provenance. Today you will likely find five, sometimes ten, sometimes a dedicated section. Mezcal has graduated from curiosity to category, and the category is one of the most interesting things happening in spirits right now.

This is not by accident. It is the result of a generation of Mexican producers who refused to industrialise their methods, a wave of bartenders who travelled to Oaxaca to learn from maestros mezcaleros, and importers across Europe, Paloma Spirits among them, who took the time to find the producers worth representing and the stories worth telling.

What makes mezcal different from tequila

The basics first, because they matter. Mezcal and tequila are cousins, but cousins of significantly different temperaments.

Both are distilled from agave. Tequila is restricted to one species, Agave tequilana, blue agave, and to a specific geographic origin centred on Jalisco. Mezcal can be made from over thirty species of agave, with most production coming from Oaxaca, though seven other Mexican states are recognised. The genetic and geographic diversity is one reason mezcal is so vastly more varied as a category.

Then there is the cooking method. Tequila uses brick ovens, sometimes autoclaves. Traditional mezcal is cooked in conical earthen pits, hornos de tierra, lined with volcanic rock, fired with hardwood, and covered with agave fibre and earth for three to five days. The smoke gets into the agave; the smoke gets into the spirit. That earthy, primal smokiness, sometimes called the "campfire" character, is mezcal's most recognisable note, but it is far from the only one.

Distillation completes the picture. Most artisanal mezcal is distilled in small copper or sometimes clay pot stills, often heated over wood fires, in tiny palenques tucked into the hills outside small Oaxacan villages. Annual output for some producers is a few hundred bottles. Quantity is irrelevant; the family producing the spirit cares about whether their grandfather would recognise it.

The role of the maestro mezcalero

In tequila there is a maestro tequilero, but the title carries a different weight in mezcal. A maestro mezcalero is often the patriarch (or, increasingly and rightly, matriarch) of a family that has been making spirit on the same patch of mountain for four, six, sometimes eight generations. The recipe is not written down. It is passed down. The wood for the fire, the species of agave preferred, the moment to harvest, the duration of the cook, the cut points on the still: all of it lives in the head of the maestro and is taught by example.

This is what makes mezcal one of the most genuinely artisanal spirits in the world. It is impossible to industrialise without breaking the thing that makes it interesting. The market reality is that demand has accelerated faster than supply can scale honestly, which has tempted some producers to industrialise quietly. The discerning importer's job is to know which producers have not, and to bring those producers' work to bars and drinkers who will appreciate it.

Why Oaxaca

Oaxaca is the spiritual and physical heart of mezcal. Roughly 90% of mezcal sold globally comes from Oaxaca, and it is the only state where you find the full spectrum of agave species, microclimates, and traditional techniques operating side by side.

Within Oaxaca, regions matter. The Sierra Juárez mountains in the north produce a different style than the central valleys around Tlacolula or the cooler highlands of San Dionisio Ocotepec. Soil varies from limestone to volcanic; altitude varies from 1,500 to over 2,500 metres; rainfall, frost, and exposure all shift the agave's expression. As with wine, the same agave species grown in two villages thirty kilometres apart will yield two distinguishable mezcals.

This is the depth that European drinkers, particularly those primed by a wine culture that thinks in terroir, are ready to appreciate. The conversation around mezcal in Spain and Portugal mirrors the conversation about Burgundy or Priorat: where does it come from, who made it, what does the place taste like in the glass?

Ensemble mezcals: the case for blends

Most mezcal on European shelves is single-agave: usually espadín, the workhorse cultivated species that accounts for about 85% of mezcal production. Espadín is reliable, sustainable, and capable of beautiful things. But the most interesting mezcals are often ensembles: blends of two or more agave species, distilled together or blended after distillation.

The case for ensembles is the case for any well-judged blend in spirits: the whole exceeds the sum of the parts. A skilled maestro selects species that complement each other, perhaps a high-yielding cultivated agave for body and an aromatic wild agave for top notes. The result has range that no single variety can match.

This is exactly what makes Banhez Mezcal so distinctive. Banhez is an ensemble of espadín and tobasiche, two agave species with entirely different personalities. Espadín brings approachability and structure; tobasiche brings a wild, herbal, almost menthol top note. Together they make a mezcal that is smoky without being aggressive, complex without being intimidating, and characterful without sacrificing drinkability. It is, in our view, one of the best entry points into serious mezcal that the category currently offers.

Paloma Spirits holds exclusive distribution rights for Banhez across Europe. We did not seek that arrangement; we earned it by visiting, listening, drinking, and demonstrating that we understood what makes Banhez worth championing.

Mezcal cocktail culture

Five years ago, the question of how to use mezcal in cocktails was contested. Some bartenders insisted it should only be sipped neat; others were already swapping it into Margaritas, Negronis, and Old Fashioneds. The market has answered. Mezcal cocktails are now an established category in Europe's best bars, and the integration is genuinely exciting.

A few principles seem to hold:

• Smoke wants weight. Mezcal's smoky, earthy character pairs best with cocktails that have body: agave-led drinks, citrus-forward sours with a savoury edge, anything with mole bitters or hoja santa.
• The Mezcal Negroni is a gift. Substitute mezcal for gin in a Negroni and the whole drink shifts: the bitters anchor differently, Campari's herbal edge intensifies, and the smoke binds it together. It is a five-star addition to any list.
• Margaritas, but make them mezcal. A house Margarita built on espadín is one of the most sellable items on a Spanish summer terrace. The drink is familiar; the spirit elevates it.
• Don't bury the producer. If you have a single-village mezcal made by a maestro whose name you can pronounce, the right move is to serve it neat with citrus and salt and let the bartender tell the story.

A category that respects the drinker

The thing that distinguishes mezcal as a category, and what makes it such a good fit for the European market, is its built-in respect for the drinker's intelligence. Every bottle of well-made mezcal is a small piece of cultural and agricultural history. There is more story per millilitre in a serious mezcal than in almost any other spirit. Drinkers who have spent the last decade learning to think about wine, single malt, or natural cider find themselves perfectly equipped to engage with mezcal at the level it deserves.

Spain and Portugal, with their wine cultures and their growing community of trained bartenders, are some of the best markets in the world for this kind of conversation. We see it every week in the bars we work with. A mezcal-curious drinker becomes a mezcal-loyal drinker fast, because once you understand what is in the glass, it is hard to be satisfied by anything less again.

That is the moment we live for as importers, and it is why we keep going back to Oaxaca, year after year, looking for the next palenque worth bringing home.