Un Mezcalito, solo uno...

Like many places in the world Oaxaca has it´s own traditional drink, Mezcal, and I can´t lie, I´ve grown quite fond of the stuff. Mezcal is similar to Tequila in that it is made from a type of the agave cactus, Mezcal from the Maguey, and Tequila from the Blue Agave, but the taste is entirely different. I will however concede that the effects have somewhat of a likening to each other. Now I will make no claim to be even something like a specialist on Mezcal but I do think that a couple of nasty hangovers and a trip to the Mezcal Palenque to see how it´s made qualify me to give at least a brief description.

One of the things that I like about Mezcal is that while it´s widely commercially produced it still has a great tradition of local production. Not every town, but many of them, have a Palenque where Mezcal is produced for sale locally. You won´t find any frosted bottles, fancy labels, or catchy slogans here though. No my friend you´re taking home your Mezcal in a recycled water bottle or a plastic gas can.

My First encounter with Mezcal came this last December when I came to Oaxaca to go to a friends wedding. I spent the first night in the city and found my way to a somewhat famous bar by the name of ¨Casa de Mezcal.¨ I promptly proceeded to get myself nice and liquored up, little did I know the abundance in which it would soon be available to me.

Mezcal at the wedding was something of an obligation, it seemed to be as central to the ceremony as, well, the bride and groom. A few guests were assigned the job of circulating through the party and serving up shots of Mezcal, and they took their task quite seriously. Once they offered you a shot you were taking it whether you had come to that realization yet or not. They all had the same approach as well, a typical pitch went some thing like the following.

- ¨¿Un Mezcalito?¨

For my non-spanish speaking amigos the –ito at the end signifies little. It would be sort of like saying, ¨one little shot of Mezcal?¨ Which is already a bit silly because as we all know a shot is a shot, and even if you did ask for a small one the glass was always over flowing by the time it reached your hand.¨

- ¨No, no I´m good,¨ you respond.

- ¨Oh come on, just one, no more than one.¨

- ¨No I just took one from that other guy.¨

- ¨Oh, but this is different, this is apart from that.¨

At this point you´re thinking, ¨What´s that supposed to mean?¨

- ¨That was that bottle, this is this bottle,¨ he then continues.

Seeing as it all came from the same larger container originally this is just completely ridiculous. It´s more or less the equivalent of saying;

¨Hey take a bite of this end of the hot dog.¨

¨No I just took a bite of the other end.¨

¨But that was that end, this end is completely different.¨

Now, seeing that you´re not budging, he changes up his approach and goes ahead and pours the shot.

- ¨Now it´s poured so you´ve gotta take it,¨ he says.

- ¨No I don´t,¨ you reply somewhat indignantly, adding a wag of the finger in an attempt to drive your point home.

- ¨Well what am I gonna do with it than?¨

What you feel like telling the guy is, ¨Hey asshole why don´t you take the damn thing. I´m already half way shitfaced and you´re the one who poured it anyways!¨

But, of course, in the spirit of the party and much to your own chagrin, and much to the pleasure of the mezcalero, you end up taking the shot. And he moves on to try his argument on the next sorry sucker who hasn´t yet acknowledged that he or she is about to take a shot of Mezcal.

Seeing as they´ve got god knows how many gallons of the stuff and five or six guys circulating through the crowd it´s never too long before some one else shows up offering you, ¨un mezcalito, solo uno…¨