John McEvoy wrote what has to be the first English-language book for mezcal geeks: Holy Smoke! It’s Mezcal came out in 2014. So when John sent us an email complaining that we “left out the most important part” in our “Tequila vs Mezcal” episode … well, we invited him on to try to convince him that he’s wrong. Will it work? Can we change the mind of the man who goes by Mezcal PhD? Find out in this episode of Agave Road Trip!

This episode of Agave Road Trip is brought to you by MezcalForLife.com. What you drink out of is just as important as what you drink. MezcalForLife.com can help you find the perfect drinking vessel for your perfect agave spirit. Head to MezcalForLife.com now and you can be set for next week’s episode of Agave Road Trip, sponsored by MezcalForLife.com!

This episode of Agave Road Trip has also been brought to you by JUST Egg. Made from plants, JUST Egg has zero cholesterol, it's packed with clean, sustainable protein, and it cooks and tastes just like eggs. Chef Jose Andres calls JUST Egg “mind-blowing” and Bon Appetit says it’s “so good I feel guilty eating it.” For Road-trippers who operate a restaurant, you can get a sample for free. Head to ju.st/hrn.

This episode of Agave Road Trip is also brought to you by Duke’s Liquor Box. Duke’s Liquor Box has everything you want to drink, including a selection of New York spirits from their locals-only shelf. The only thing they don’t have? A guy named Duke. So don’t ask for Duke when you visit Duke’s Liquor Box at 114 Franklin in the heart of Greenpoint. You can also shop online at dukesliquorbox.com

Agave Road Trip is a podcast that helps gringo bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. It’s hosted by Lou Bank and Chava Periban. 

Episode transcript

Lou Bank (00:00):

Hey, road-trippers, you have indeed reached Agave Road Trip, the podcast that helps gringo bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. But before we can take off on this week's road trip, we need to fill up the tank, which is code for pay the bills, which is code for run the commercials for the folks who are enabling us to go on these Agave Road Trips. So sit back and Chava and I will circle back to you shortly.

Chava Periban (00:26):

Oh, wait, Lou, what the hell are you doing? What's that you're pouring into?

Lou Bank (00:30):

It's, you know, it's an old mustard jar. Connie loves mustard. So we have a ton of these old jars sitting around.

Chava Periban (00:36):

Are you crazy? But that's shaped all wrong, Lou!

Lou Bank (00:38):

It's got a bottom and four sides, Chava. What more does it need?

Chava Periban (00:43):

We've talked about this more than once, Lou. The shape of what you drink out significantly affects the flavors you experience from your mezcal or your agave spirit. Like, ah, how can you, how can you ruin this? Have you ever experienced it with a copita?

Lou Bank (00:58):

Of course I have. I used to have a house full of copitas and jicaras. The problem, Chava, is I gave them all away. I've got so many friends and they couldn't find copitas where they lived. So I helped them out

Chava Periban (01:09):

So generous, but there's this solution for that, Lou, for you and your friends, it's called MezcalForLife.com.

Lou Bank (01:16):

You can drink out of something called MezcalForLife.com?

Chava Periban (01:19):

Not yet, Lou, technology, hasn't gone that far, but it's a website and they sell copitas, vasas veladora, very traditional and fancy drinking vessels for traditional and fancy mezcal spirits. Or agave spirits.

Lou Bank (01:34):

So I can tell Connie to stop eating so much mustard?

Chava Periban (01:37):

Well, I don't know if that's actually a wise move, Lou

Lou Bank (01:40):

But it is a wise move to go to MezcalForLife.com and buy some new copitas.

Chava Periban (01:44):

Yes, joven, that's a very wise move

Lou Bank (01:46):

MezcalForLife.com can help you find the perfect drinking vessel for your perfect agave spirit, head to MezcalForLife.com and you can be set for next week's episode of Agave Road Trip, sponsored by MezcalForLife.com.

Lou Bank (02:01):

This episode of Agave Road Trip is also brought to you in part byJUST Egg. Chef Jose Andres calls JUST Egg “mind-blowing” and Bon Appetit says it’s “So Good I Feel Guilty Eating It.” What I say is, Thank you, JUST Egg, for giving me back the egg-on-burger experience. Several months into this pandemic, I had heart palpitations that led me to a cardiologist. My cardiologist, Steve — because the best cardiologists let you call them Steve — said I had to go on a vegan diet to get my cholesterol under control. Pairing JUST Egg with a plant-based burger, it's like nothing has changed — except my blood pressure. So when I say Agave Road Trip is brought to you in part by JUST Egg, what I mean is literally I am the part of Agave Road Trip that is brought to you by JUST Egg. Thank you, JUST Egg, for saving my heart.

Lou Bank (02:53):

This is Lou Bank, and before I ever went on any Agave Road Trips, I was taking daily trips on the G line, from Manhattan to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where I lived with a couple of my Marvel Comics coworkers. Where we lived then is about four blocks from where Duke’s Liquor Box is located now. Where was Duke’s in 1989? We sure could have used it. Back then, you couldn’t even find decent beer. But now? Man, now, if I were thirsty for something obscure, like, say, I dunno, a gin made with guava and passion fruit? I’d go to Duke’s Liquor Box. Haitian bitters? You thirsty for Haitian forest Bitters? Go to Duke’s. How about heirloom tomato eau-de-vie? I didn’t even know what that was in the 1980s. But Duke’s has that. Duke’s has small batch distilled gems like LA One Whiskey, or if you want to drink like a druid, grab a bottle of their (glen-da-lock) Pot Still Irish Whiskey, aged in Sustainably harvested, 140 Year Old Irish Oak barrels and ex Bourbon barrels. Or … what’s that you say? Does Duke’s have agave spirits? Well, of course they do! Duke’s Liquor Box prides itself on their selection of fine spirits & wines, so you’ll find rare, delicious treasures like Cinco Sentidos Tobala, Tosba Pechuga Mezcal, and Siembra Valles Ancestral Tequila Blanco. Duke’s Liquor Box has everything you want, including a selection of New York spirits from their locals-only shelf. The only thing they don’t have? … is a guy named Duke. So don’t ask for Duke when you visit Duke’s Liquor Box at 114 Franklin in the heart of Greenpoint. You can also shop online at dukesliquorbox.com

Music, Man (04:42):

[Award-winning theme song by Gabriel Oliveira and Marc Ricos]

Lou Bank (04:54):

I am Lou Bank.

Chava Periban (04:56):

I am Chava Periban. And who are you?

John McEvoy (04:56):

I am John McEvoy

Lou Bank (05:00):

And this is Agave Road Trip, the podcast that helps gringo bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. And today, Chava, we have our first actual live guest.

Chava Periban (05:11):

Yes. This is a tremendous experience because I get to chill out and don't have to fight with you the whole episode.

Lou Bank (05:20):

That's right, I get to fight with somebody else. I get to fight with John McEvoy, Dr. John McEvoy, mezcal PhD, the author of Holy Smoke! It's Mezcal! So we did an episode of Agave Road Trip called "Tequila vs Mezcal," and in response I received from John an email. I'm going to quote you, John, just so you can't claim that you've got a different intention here today. Okay?

John McEvoy (05:51):

Oh, I'm proud of it. Go ahead.

Lou Bank (05:54):

"So my well-intentioned critique is" — this is my voice for you, John — "is that you are saying you're trying to give gringo bartenders the quick answer. And I think you left out the most important part. I always say three things, productions process, agaves, and what states you can make it in. You hit two of three, but when it comes to bartenders talking to the uninitiated, the smoky profile is perhaps the most important thing, which is a function of production technique. Nevertheless, I love Agave Road Trip." I threw that last part in -- you did write that though, right?

John McEvoy (06:31):

I did. No, I did.

Lou Bank (06:35):

So John, welcome to "Tequila vs Mezcal: Round Two," You felt that mezcal or tequila, maybe both, needed an advocate. So hit me! I guess you did hit me with that email.

John McEvoy (06:54):

I did. I did. And you know, I do love Agave Road Trip, let's be clear. But I listened to the 10 or 15 minutes you guys were talking about it. And of course you guys, you know, usually hit all the right notes. But in this episode, for some reason you talked about the differences between tequila and mezcal for 10 or 15 minutes, and you never mentioned the production techniques. And I was, I was astounded by that.

Lou Bank (07:24):

To be fair, we actually did. We did. We talked about what the actual regulations are around the production techniques. And this is, to me, the salient point to mezcal. Shouldn't say the salient point. It is the point at which I get frustrated by the regulations. Does that make sense?

John McEvoy (07:51):

Yeah, absolutely.

Lou Bank (07:53):

So, okay. So you talk about smoky, but the truth is there are some tequilas that aren't smoky and there are some mezcals that aren't smoky. Is that correct?

John McEvoy (08:03):

Well, clearly, an overly smokey mezcal is not a good mezcal, right?

Lou Bank (08:12):

I would disagree, but go ahead

John McEvoy (08:13):

And overly smokey mezcal is not a poorly made mezcal?

Lou Bank (08:17):

Correct. I would say that that's not accurate. Every time that I think I can say something is absolutely true, I find something to prove that wrong. I guarantee you, there are some communities where the Mezcalero that's the flavot they like, that's what they're shooting for. They make a smoky mezcal and while it's nothing that I— well, I shouldn't even say that. I can't taste smoke anymore. I make too much barbecue in my backyard. But I would not say that that's a poorly made mezcal, but even if it's a poorly made mezcal, even if you said that ... it's still mezcal. It still passes the CRM's test.

John McEvoy (09:03):

Correct.

Lou Bank (09:04):

Okay. So now keep going.

John McEvoy (09:05):

All right. So, like you've said, I tend to generalize. When I say things like that ... have I had a super smoky mezcal that I thought was good? I'm sure I have. But in general, I find if they're too smokey, there's some other flaws going on as well. So when I think about what you guys are doing, and I think about how you're billing your podcast, as an education to people who might not know about a lot about mezcal, I think sometimes you guys know too much. You guys can run circles around pretty much everybody with knowledge. [laughter] No. True, true. I mean, as much time as you guys spent there, you, you can certainly ru circles around me, no doubt about it.

Lou Bank (09:52):

I think Chava's concern is you just inflated my ego? I think that was the sound you heard coming out of Chava.

Chava Periban (09:57):

Yeah, no -- don't do that, John. Don't do that, John.

John McEvoy (10:01):

But sometimes, you know too much. And so you get into the nuance and you miss the big picture. And that's what I found when I listened to that podcast, you missed the big picture. And if you don't mention the word smoke or smokey, yes, those aren't the things that we, who are deep in mezcal, will look for. We look past them when we're drinking mezcal. I don't taste the smoke. I only taste the smoke in a mezcal if I haven't had mezcal for several weeks. Which kind of never happens. But if it did, I would taste the smoke again. So we're always finding the things that are beyond it, but to people who aren't used to mezcal, it's like the defining characteristic, I would argue.

Chava Periban (10:40):

Yeah. But I think that's something that was in the back of my mind through the whole episode was the Siembra project, you know? And he's doing hand-milling—.

John McEvoy (10:51):

David Suro?

Chava Periban (10:53):

David Suro's Siembra project. He's doing handmilling, he's doing copper batch distillation. Process wise, it's almost identical to mezcal. And I think that's going to be more and more the case with tequila,

Lou Bank (11:08):

Cascahuin, right? Isn't Cascahuin doing pit cooking?

Chava Periban (11:12):

I'm not sure. But I wouldn't be surprised. And I think that is going to be more often the case in the tequila context once the mezcal really booms. Because people say the boom has already happened. I don't think so. I think we're still five years away from, you know, going to Manila or going to Columbia or going to certain places

Lou Bank (11:34):

Or going to Arkansas, right? Lots of places in the USA, places in Mexico where mezcal is still not found.

Chava Periban (11:43):

So I think process-wise, even if I will absolutely agree with you that right now, the way 99% of the tequilas are made is different to the mezcal on principle, I will claim that it's about to start merging more and more. I think that we might start seeing more tequilas that try to emulate process-wise the traditions of mezcal. And I think at least for me, that's my excuse. I guess that's what I'm saying.

John McEvoy (12:14):

No, I get it. And I know David Suro. I know Siembra—.

Lou Bank (12:19):

And you, sir, are no David Suro!

John McEvoy (12:19):

But I don't know what you just said, about what his process is. So that gets to my point, that you guys fell into my trap. You guys know more, and you know that nuance to a very deep level and to the average person—

Lou Bank (12:47):

Well, to be fair, I did say Cascahuin is pit cooking. Right?

John McEvoy (12:52):

But that's a tequila that I just heard about like two weeks ago. I'd never even heard about it and somebody brought it to my attention and I'm always kind of looking around, so, okay. Maybe I was asleep at the wheel.

Lou Bank (13:04):

It's so good.

John McEvoy (13:05):

Is it?

Lou Bank (13:06):

It's so good.

Chava Periban (13:07):

No, no, no. You're so right.

New Speaker (13:10):

That I know less about mezcal than you?

Chava Periban (13:12):

This is why I should start hanging out with more people who don't drink mezcal.

Lou Bank (13:14):

No, he just needs to hang out with more people. He has like three friends and I'm one of them.

Chava Periban (13:21):

Yeah,

Lou Bank (13:25):

Well, you know, so I think what you're saying is a valid point. I think we can help bartenders. I think we can help gringo bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico by saying to them, look, the vast majority of tequila is made in a way that is industrial and is not going to be smoky. Though there will be exceptions. And the vast majority of mezcal — because the agave is often cooked in this earthen oven that sometimes still has some smoky embers in it — that it will often taste smoky, hough it won't always taste smoky. I think that is helpful because, you're not wrong. Like somebody's going to sit down at that bar and say, well, what's the difference between tequila and mezcal, and probably rather than talk about all of the regulations that we talked about, the bartender's just going to say, well, that one's smokey and that one's not.

John McEvoy (14:24):

I think you're right. And I think that an entry-level mezcal, which is usually where a bartender would start. They're probably not going to pour, you know, a 50% El Jolgorio Tepextate when somebody is, Hey, tell me about mezcal. They're going to pour a 40% or low forties Bujo, Ilegal, Sombra, something like that. And all those are very light-smoke mezcals, I think by design. And I think that's where ... so I don't know an entry-level mezca; brand that's—.

Lou Bank (15:00):

Zignum....

John McEvoy (15:00):

No, that's not a mezcal. We can talk about that.

Lou Bank (15:06):

Okay. But this is exactly my point.

Chava Periban (15:12):

Hey, hey, hey. Don't get aggressive.

Lou Bank (15:13):

This is literally my point is Zignum is mezcal. It is, by definition, mezcal. It is certified as mezcal and the vast majority of the men and women that you and I love who make these beautiful spirits by hand and cook the agave underground in a stone-lined earth and oven ... the vast majority of those men and women cannot certify their spirits as mezcal because they can't afford to. They rely on gringos or Mexican politicians who are brand owners to do the certification. At which point they become a kind of, sort of, not really, but kind of, sort of indentured servant to those brand owners. And it frustrates me to no end that you can have those gringos owning the brands/ The Mexicans can't, right? The men and women making the spirits can't. And, as a result, you get a brand like Zignum that isn't — and I've got no qualm with Zignum, I think I've said this in several episodes, but okay. The point is they're certified and they're not smoking agave underground. They're not doing things in a difficult way. And yet the families that are, aren't able to use the word mezcal.

John McEvoy (16:24):

Yeah. And that's a frustration that is well deserved. I understand.

Lou Bank (16:30):

And so for me, just saying it's all smokey kind of says, well, I will try this Zignum, then, and it'll be smoky and maybe a person tastes smoke it and maybe they don't — there isn't any smoke in the process. But I don't think it's fair for that family to not be able to use the word mezcal, and then the credit of all of that hard work is given to a brand that doesn't do the hard work.

John McEvoy (16:54):

I totally agree with you, but would you ever introduce someone to mezcal with Zignum?

Lou Bank (17:03):

Yes. As a matter of fact, I've used this story many times. so Zignum, I poured it as one of 10 spirits in my Mezcal 101 session at Tales of the Cocktail. And one of the attendees came running up to me afterwards, gave me a thousand dollars for SACRED, right? For the nonprofit that I run that helps to improve quality of life in the rural Mexican communities where heritage agave spirits are made -- gave me a thousand dollars and then later gave me another $2,000. And then later told me on the phone that her favorite spirit of that day was Zignum.

John McEvoy (17:55):

Well that's 'cause it tastes like a tequila and an uninitiated palate might be attracted to that.

Lou Bank (18:03):

Exactly. Which is exactly how I would pull somebody along the trail of drinking mezcal. I absolutely would and have used Zignum

John McEvoy (18:12):

You know, in a setting like that, I could see putting Zignum in the mix. I mean, when I do tastings with people at home, occasionally I'll do like blind tastings and I purposely put in some real crap mezcal just to say, okay, you know, let's try all these. And then invariably, people have identified the crap mezcal as, Oh, whatever that is, it's terrible. And for the most part, these are friends of mine who know what mezcal tastes like. But you know, you kind of use it as something to differentiate against the rest of the crowd. So I can see where you might put a Zignum in there, but it's mezcal in, in, you know, according to the NOM, it's mezcal, but—.

Lou Bank (18:57):

where are you going to go with the "in name only"?

John McEvoy (19:02):

in name only it's like, it's not mezcal

Chava Periban (19:06):

To your point, John, you know, I was living in Vietnam for a bit and I grew obsessed with pho. you know, pho, the soup, that Vietnamese soup. And I was in a neighborhood where I only had access to the greatest pho I've had in my lifetime. It was just so delicious. It's so great. But I didn't understand at all what pho was because it was so good, so overwhelming, that I never had the time to actually sit down and really think hard about it. And it was not until I went to a touristic place and I had the worst pho that I had in my life that I was able to understand why the other things were so great. And I think you learn more through flawed things than through perfect things, because I think perfection, it's just overwhelming. It just doesn't allow you to use your usual rational—

Lou Bank (20:00):

Which is why we take the approach we do to this podcast. If it were two perfect people—

Chava Periban (20:05):

Yes, absolutely. We're fundamentally flawed, but

John McEvoy (20:08):

Oh, it's far from perfect. You're leaving out production when you're talking about tequila and mezcal.

Chava Periban (20:13):

Yeah, no, but you know what also, I think, that might also be a strategy that I've used in the past where it's almost ignoring an elephant in the room to probably give importance to another area that it's not, I think such aggressively explored and that I think creates more questions to people where ... Usually this is where the arguments start, why are they starting from a different perspective? And I, because I do think that it's really important to rethink, which are the characteristics of something and anything that we talk about. And in the case of agave spirits, I do agree that the smokiness of it, when I started having gringo friends in Oaxaca, they would always refer to mezcal as the smokey thing. And that was something that I had never thought of, when I was 18 and I was drinking that in Mexico. The last thing that I thought in my mind was smoke. It was not until a third party told me that their palate and their experience and their context informed them that the defining characteristic of that spirit was smoke that I would start thinking about that. So I think we're also at a good time to reframe that, to reframe those defining characteristics. And by doing that, I think you can also graph some of the complexities that are ingrained in the spirit. And that might be a super, almost political agenda on my side. I don't know if I actually Lou agrees with this at all, but it's something that I find very exciting in the way to move forward because otherwise, at least personally, every time I'm in a tasting environment, it gets a little bit dull. You know, I want to juggle different balls every time, and I want to take it from different places. And unfortunately I do agree with you that sometimes it's not educationally the best approach because we end up so deep into the weeds and so deep into miniscule stuff that's hard to discuss with this kid and I'm not getting into that, like that, that's also my excuse.

John McEvoy (22:26):

I completely get it.

Lou Bank (22:28):

So, okay. So, so has this made you happy, John? We said smokey, like—

John McEvoy (22:33):

can we say it a few more times? Can you say it just a few more times? And by the, by the way, I think we all cringe when we hear people say things like, Oh, mezcal is tequila's smoky cousin, or something like that,

Lou Bank (22:45):

Not if they say it's tequila's smoking hot cousin. I think that's funny.

John McEvoy (22:45):

So we cringe when we hear that, but, and I'm sure you guys have introduced a million people to mezcal ... and I have as well, you know? And people are like, Oh, I drink tequila. What's the difference? You know, taste it. And even the latest smokey mezcal — these entry-level type things that I mentioned — people are like, Oh, it's so smoky. And I don't think it's smokey at all. And that reminds me and should remind all of us in the mezcal world that man, the smoke really is such a defining characteristic. We just all look past it now because our palates are searching for other things and we don't taste the smoke for the most part.

Chava Periban (23:40):

Yeah. We're blinded and I'm dead on the inside. Like when they ask me, what's the ABV of this, I just go like good or bad. I don't even think about if it's high or low anymore. I'm just like, it has the right ABV for this expression. That's it. Okay.

Lou Bank (23:57):

Do you ever get the question, what's the difference between mezcal and bacanora?

Chava Periban (24:02):

No. And raicilla? Never. And Ixcateco -- almost never.

John McEvoy (24:11):

Sotol.

Chava Periban (24:11):

Sotol? maybe some times. I think a cousin of mine mentioned that, but yeah, it's not a common one.

Lou Bank (24:19):

Okay. I think we've beaten this horse to death.

John McEvoy (24:23):

All right. So I want to know if you're on board with me, you know, are you on board? If you were to redo your original podcast — this is a test — Tequila vs Mezcal, would you bring the word smoke and production techniques more prominently into the mix?

Chava Periban (24:43):

I will. I will. Yeah.

John McEvoy (24:44):

Victory!

Lou Bank (24:46):

I don't think I would. I think I used the analogy of, you know, well, you know ... I think I might explain the results of the pre-industrial methods a little bit more. I think that's fair. And the result being smoke, but I wouldn't put an emphasis on it. I really wouldn't. And again, it's not that I don't recognize that people are going to taste it as smokey, it's because I don't think it's as relevant in the conversation.

John McEvoy (25:20):

Hmm. Okay. If you're introducing people to mezcal, someone who's never tried it, and let's say they are a tequila drinker, what do you say? That first person, that person you meet at a bar, you know, what do you, say? Oh, you're Lou Bank, I've heard you know something about mezcal, what's the difference?

Lou Bank (25:37):

Well, what I do, if I'm in a bar where they don't have any—

John McEvoy (25:41):

Let's say they have some, let's say they have, you know, a nice selection from entry-level cocktail to, you know—

Lou Bank (25:48):

So for me, literally, the way I introduce people ... in fact, not even introduce people, people who are already like sleeping with mezcal, the first conversation I tend to have with them is about how to taste it. And so it starts with the smell, right? Sniffing it, and then sniffing it on your hands and then using a small sip for clearing your palate. It's doing that walkthrough because to me, that allows me to talk about— God, it's really interesting you say this because I hadn't even thought about this as a defense to my argument. But when I am walking people through it that way, nobody has ever said to me, smokey ever. And instead, the conversation that we have is about the sugars from the agave. It's about the agave. It's about comparing the sugars in the agave and all the molecular elements in this particular plant to all the elements in grapes and grains and all of these other sugar sources that are used to make alcohol. And that's — that's everything. I can't think of a single time when somebody stopped me and said smokey until maybe, maybe at the end.

John McEvoy (26:58):

No, no, no, but, but you know what, Lou, I think this also fits from your shock-value preference. Uh, I think even if they want to say smokey, you immediately take the conversation to another place because you just have that reflex. And you maybe just want to talk about the things that you find more interesting and just don't let people talk.

Lou Bank (27:20):

And on that note, I think we should wrap this. I really do appreciate the feedback, John. Um, you know that.

John McEvoy (27:28):

It's been fun, it's been fun and I can debate this stuff all day long.

New Speaker (27:31):

Amen, it's always so much better to debate it when we're drinking.

Lou Bank (27:35):

Okay. We're going to call it a wrap.

Chava Periban (27:37):

full pleasure.

New Speaker (27:39):

thank you.

Lou Bank (27:42):

Hasta pronto!