The Only Correct Way to Drink Mezcal
If you’re not pouring a cross on the ground as a gift to the earth … if you’re not bowing to the south in gratitude to the land from which your mezcal came from … if you’re not performing a Mayan Cħa Chac ritual chant before that first sip, you may be drinking your mezcal all wrong. And if you’re drinking it in a cocktail? Be prepared for Mayahuel to have her vengeance. In this episode of Agave Road Trip, we walk you through the only correct way to drink heritage agave spirits — so you won’t anger heritage Mexican spirits.
This episode of Agave Road Trip is brought to you by Mezcal Amarás. Mezcal Amarás is a company built through love: love for the sun, the land, and the people who work it, and most of all, love for Mexico and its sacred plant, the agave. Learn more at mezcalamaras.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.
If you’re going to do ayahuasca, you may want to consider finding someone experienced in it to guide you safely through your first encounter.
If you’re going to drink mezcal, you can probably figure it out just fine on your own — no gatekeeper needed. (Though if you’re going to drink it in a cocktail, having someone who knows how to make a good cocktail can be helpful. This is Michael Rubel. He knows how to make a good cocktail. But be warned: He gets surly about having his picture taken. And I’m guessing even more surly about having that picture posted publicly.)
Those little clay fellas? Those are the copitas we talk about in this episode. That gourd-like thing hanging out atop them? That’s the jicara we mention. The skull behind it is a bit smaller than a human skull, so … you know, that’s a decent-sized jicara.
I made an IG story to show people the way I like to drink neat agave spirits. Want to know how?
Since the chatfest this episode is basically “The Lou Bank Method of Sales,” I figured it was as good an excuse as any to post this drawing that Erik Larsen did for me when I worked at Marvel. Yay, Erik! You’re still the best!
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 in a second.
Lou Bank (00:27):
This episode of Agave Road Trip is brought to you by Mischelle. Mezcal Amarás is a company built through love; love for the sun, the land and the people who work it, and most of all, love for Mexico and its sacred plant: the agave. Now strap yourselves in for another episode of Agave Road Trip!
Gabriel Oliveira and Marc Ricos (00:47):
[Incredibly awesome theme song]
Lou Bank (01:00):
I am Lou Bank.
Chava Periban (01:01):
and I am Chava Periban.
Lou Bank (01:02):
and this is Agave Road Trip, the podcast that helps gringo bartenders better understand agave, agave spirits, and rural Mexico. Chava, what you got for me today?
Chava Periban (01:13):
The other day I was in a bar and someone asked for some agave spirits, and she took the glass to the ceiling, made like some sort of weird cross, uh, threw a little bit to the ground, said some words and just sipped, as she was doing some angelical stuff.
Lou Bank (01:31):
And when you told your girlfriend to stop doing that, then what happened?
Chava Periban (01:34):
Well, she kicked me in the face. That's why my nose looks the way it does, but, no, like, you know, we talk a lot about, agave spirit's cultural heritage and some people even go to the extent of saying that in some communities asking for agave spirits, it's like asking for the dance of the thunder or asking for a very ritual-specific thing. So I've always wonder, is there a way in which agave spirits could be consumed in this kind of context? I mean, I'm thinking about some of the, you know, like legal drugs, like ayahuasca and other stuff that they say that you should only consume them in a ritualistic way and not just like take them easily. So like, do you think there's some parallelism with agave spirits that way? Like, do you need like a special shaman to lead you on the way or like to be in contact with your spirits on a—
Lou Bank (02:29):
well, I think it's an excellent question, young Chava and if you're asking me, do you need somebody to guide you through taking these specific drugs? My understanding of some of those drugs is you should probably have somebody who is experienced with them. Now, putting that aside and just talking about agave spirits, you know, I I'm of two minds. The first mind is I don't like the idea of "gatekeepers," preventing people from enjoying this thing, how they want to enjoy it. And then the other piece of me is thinking, you know, I really do love the cultural heritage around these spirits, in so many of these communities. And while I don't think it's a necessity that people learn them, I think it's important that those things continue to live. And so, there's definitely a value to people learning them. On the other hand, I just don't see these communities that have held onto these pieces of cultural heritage for so many centuries ... I don't see them disappearing just because I'm not doing it. I guess that's three minds. Is that three minds?
Chava Periban (03:44):
Yes. But okay. Let me rephrase this a little bit. Let's say you took the agave spirits to the U S and I think it could be hypocritical to try to replicate the way they drink it in the community there, right? So you drink it like how gringos drink it, but if you go to the town—
Lou Bank (04:01):
Would you, I'm sorry, when you say hypocritical to drink it that way, like, is it hypocritical or is it sort of a cartoon-ization of what they're doing?
Chava Periban (04:16):
Yeah, that's what I meant. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You're, you're making a cartoon out of for Rachel, but when you go to the towns, have you ever been put in the position where you were about to enjoy your agave spirit the way you usually do? And then suddenly a community was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're doing it wrong. Have you ever been in that position?
Lou Bank (04:37):
You know, I have not. As you're saying that, like, maybe you have? I've actually had the opposite situation, right? I learned early on from mezcaleros that you sip it and you take your time. And then I was at this Tres Reyes celebration with a bunch of them. And one of them ... like we were dancing, right? It was so much fun. I had a decorated quiote that looked like Charlie Brown's giant Christmas tree. And I was having a good time. And this guy, he came over to me and he poured me in a little shot glass. He poured me some of his fine mezcal and he gives it to me and I start sipping it. And he's looking at me like, come on, I got to go to the next guy. I said, what? But I'm supposed to sip and he took it and he just shot it. And then he said, that's what you do. And so I guess the ritual in this case is sip it, unless I tell you to shoot it. And we're having a good time.
Chava Periban (05:30):
Exactly. And that also happened to me. They gave me a big jicara, and there was only that one jicara and like 10 other people in the circle. And they said like, okay, just sip it once. And I just did a little sip and they were like, no, no, no, no — all of it in one sip.
Lou Bank (05:48):
A whole jicara? In one sip?
Chava Periban (05:51):
Yeah. So everybody was just, you know, they will give you the gourd and they'll like, sip it down. Like just shoot it down from the gourd, which was a very big one, actually. So for me, that's weird because people will think that only happens like in university parties. Right?
Lou Bank (06:07):
Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Boy, that's interesting. You know, so you just, you just sent me down a whole different path in my head where one of my favorite things to do pre-pandemic was to show up at any party I was invited to with, in one hand, a one-gallon jug of agave spirits, labeled with my carpenter tape labels, and in the other hand, a jicara the size of my head—the jicara being the gourd-like thing that people drink out of. And I would go around and fill it up. And just the action of filling that thing, right? That smell and the splashing and everyone gets excited, and then I'm going from person to person and serving it up, almost like you're in church, holding it with both hands, and you take it to your mouth and you take your sip. And then it goes to the next person. The only thing I'm missing is that little wafer to put on the tongue. And you know, I've never thought of it as a cartoon-ization, but now that you're saying it, I like ... I'm definitely trying to get their attention with theater, if you will, definitely trying to do that, though I've I don't think I've ever suggested that this is how they drink it in rural Mexico.
Chava Periban (07:27):
It got to the point where I was just with a big jug of agave spirits, I had a cup and a spoon, and I was just giving spoons of mezcal to people -- just hitting them with a spoon.
Lou Bank (07:40):
Huh. I like that! A spoon is just like a little jicara
Chava Periban (07:42):
Jicara. Right. That's what I thought. It was like a good half an ounce. It was not going to kill anybody. Everybody was very happy. They liked the theater of it. Nobody was thinking of microbes back then. So, yeah.
Lou Bank (07:55):
Right. But you know, what I will say is, there's another whole ritual thing that I do, but, again, I don't ever express it as, This is how they do it. But, you know, when I'm teaching people in my master class, when I'm teaching people how to drink these spirits, I always start off with, here's *a* way to approach it. Right? Like, I have a very specific approach that I suggest they try first, and then do whatever you want afterwards, but just give this a try, because, you know, I find that these spirits can be so much more complex than anything else you'll drink. My friends are used to drinking up here in the USA. So if, you know, I force them to smell it first in the copita, and then smell it on their hands, so that they smell it out of the copita— So you're losing some of that alcohol, and you're just getting those roasted sugars and agave, and I think there's something about that act of slowing down and smelling in different ways that forces people to pay more attention. So it's literally, like, I'm doing one thing, but I've got this whole second objective in mind, right?
Chava Periban (09:02):
Yeah. I get it.
Lou Bank (09:03):
Then I tell them, you're going to take three sips, but the first sip isn't even really a sip. You just drop your tongue into that copita, into that destilado, that spirit, and then rub it on the roof of your mouth. Almost like you're kissing yourself — to clear your palate. But very intentionally, when I say "kissing yourself," I kind of want them to fall in love with the spirit. And I'm suggesting with that first kiss that that's the path I've got them on, right?
Chava Periban (09:29):
Such a romantic. I have never seen this face of Lou.
Lou Bank (09:31):
And then I tell them to just take half a sip, leave it on the tongue for the count of five. Some of that alcohol is going to start evaporating in the mouth. So you're sort of consuming it through your sinuses, but also just leaving it on your tongue introduces your palate to all of this complexity that you're going to find in these spirits that you won't find in spirits that are fermented and distilled from sugar sources that are six months old as opposed to eight years old.
Chava Periban (10:06):
No, I understand. Yeah. There's so much more information in these guys, sort of the conclusion that I'm getting from this is, there's no way for us to be disrespectful to mezcal. Because I've seen all these bottles that say, like, drink it with respect, or honor the drink. Do you think there's a way of disrespecting agave spirits?
Lou Bank (10:26):
I know that there are people who think so, and a lot of those people are my friends. On the other hand, I certainly would have said yes, if you'd asked me three years ago. But now, I don't think so. Now I think the way to disrespect it is, you steal it instead of paying for it. Like, that's the only way you could really be disrespectful of it if you want to— Oh God. One of my good friends, one of your good friends, Crazy Horse, right? He was telling me, yeah, Jason Parr was telling me that he was serving at Cindy's in Chicago one night. And there was, I want to say it was a Vago Madrecuishe. It was like $150 bottle. So I don't know if people were paying $25 or $30 for an ounce, but in that range, and some hot shot with a lot of money came in and wanted Jason to make amezcal and soda with that. And he didn't want to serve it to him, but he knew he had to, because that was his job. And he certainly felt that that was being disrespectful.
New Speaker (11:30):
But you know, I'll also say that when I first started drinking mezcal, I found it too hard to drink. I would put an ice cube in it. When I would attend Ron Cooper's class and he would walk me through it, I could take it and I could taste it. And I enjoyed it and I loved it. But as soon as I went off on my own and I had that bottle ... because I wasn't drinking out of his tiny little copitas that sort of forced me to take small sips, I was just drinking the way I would normally drink, which is large gulps, which you can't do with mezcal unless you put an ice cube in it. It just took me a while to figure out: small sips.
Chava Periban (12:04):
Okay. So let let's say conclusion is you cannot disrespect mezcal unless you steal it. So please guys don't steal it. That's a wrap.
Lou Bank (12:22):
Okay. Hang on, Road-trippers. We're not done yet. We've got an episode of Chava and Lou's chatfest coming up. This episode of Agave Road Trip has been brought to you by our friends at Mezcal Amaras. Mezcal Verde, by Mezcal Amarás, breaks with the status quo by offering a playful, honest and intelligent vision. It's born wild with a cause without one fixed label, but many, displaying its true values and what it stands for, #NoLabels. Mezcal Verde amplifies the voice of multidisciplinary collaborators in different stages of their artistic journey, giving them a white canvas to express their cause and art. Verde's DNA maintains the belief that creativity is the catalyst for change, going beyond just one identity and perspective. It is a game-changer, inviting new consumers into the mezcal category through a disruptive proposal. It is a high-quality mezcal that respects Amarás' holistic cycle “From seed to Sip” crafted with the same artisanal methods using 8-year-old agave Espadín. With an approachable soft smoke, sweet caramel, and grass notes, Mezcal Verde is perfect for cocktails on every occasion. Sip it, mix it, share it, kiss it!