Bozal Ensemble Mezcal with Peterson Irish Cask!

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome to the Whiskey Chasers, where we talk about our passion for whiskey and its history, either amongst ourselves or while interviewing distilleries. All while enjoying a glass. I'm Steve. I'm Nick, and I'm Chris. Please enjoy responsibly while enjoying this week's episode of The Whiskey Chasers. Alright. So now on to Christmas future. And we have a Mezcal. Or a tequila. In this case, Mezcal.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Yeah. I just when you when you say future on Mezcal, I'm like, yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of people say that that may be where things are going.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Or things are tequila around.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

So yeah, moving moving into tequila. I think people are saying it's gonna take off at some point. I don't know how true that is. I think things are fads. We'll see, we'll see if it does really take off or not. But I know for me there's some future possibilities for tequila. As I was researching tequila, mezcal in particular, and then also I've I've had this one before where this is the Bozal is the name of the company.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Is that how you pronounce it out?

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Basal Bazal Bozal?

SPEAKER_02 1:18

I don't know. Bozo, yeah, Boz Bozal. Bozal the clown.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Yep. This is their ensemble, is is the name of this particular bottle. And they call it a pretty light mezcal. What? Yeah. Yeah, that which that caught me. Yeah. When they were talking about this, it's a pretty this is a pretty easygoing one. Now I want to start a really heavy one. If this is a light mezcal, then I am on board with mezcal. You must have been drinking like like really crappy mezcal.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

The one you got was the one had a worm in it. And that one, I remember trying to be like, this is this is all this is not good. Like this is like bottom shelf. It was bottom shelf. Bottom shelf mezcal. I think it was like fine for mixing five ten minutes. And I ate the worm.

SPEAKER_03 2:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

The one that I got prior to that, I forget the company. It was a beautiful, like Aloha or something, like was the name of the bottle. And it looked like like this tropical skull kind of like a mermaid. It was something weird, but that was heavier than it maybe even this with the the like smokiness.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Yeah, it was more like of that, it's more like that burnt cactus agave type stuff. But as far as like flavor goes, like this thing is more flavorful than those were. It just has a lot of like depth, like depth of flavor in it.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Yeah, the things I was reading says that this one is is called a uh it's a light mezcal but with a complex finish. And so I remember right, this was a pretty affordable bottle, too.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Yeah, I don't think it's super expensive. No, I think this one was maybe 50. Great price. Which is crazy. Like, and I don't know if that's a great price for tequila. So there we go. That's the thing. I don't know. We talk about this being the ghost of the future, right? Yeah, yeah. Christmas future. Christmas future, spirit, spirit, spirit of Christmas future. Yeah, so years ago, I mean, this is probably 2020 that you and I sat down and we started drinking. Think about the club and different things, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Yeah, and people were telling us, well, maybe not back then, but we've been we've heard a lot from people that we tequila.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

I mean, I feel like you and I were like, tequila is the next big thing. Yeah, like tequila is gonna be the next big, like sought-after thing. Yeah, it's gonna take over whiskey because at that point it was starting to get whiskey was starting to that incline of getting more and more expensive and harder and harder to find, where tequila at the time was always on the shelves, and the most expensive bottle that you were gonna find at that time was gonna be like 40 bucks.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

And what well, and what you were getting for that price? You were getting something craft and something made with very good ingredients and something painstakingly put together for a very good price. And that's why we said at the time, we're like, this is a matter of time before this takes off. We and we just had dipped our toes, but we heard from other people, like other distilleries that said that they thought tequila was the next big thing. But they've been they have been saying that for the last couple years.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

I think part of the part of the limitation of tequila or mezcal is it's it's it's location specific. It has to be made in Jalisco, Mexico, the state of Jalisco for it to be mezcal. To be to be mezcal, tequila, any of those things.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Okay, so uh is it Oaxa?

SPEAKER_01 4:25

That is an that is an area in Jalisco. Oh that tequila has to be made in. Got it. Okay, I couldn't remember if that's where mezcal was. And this is something I didn't know, but mezcal is kind of like whiskey, and tequila is kind of like bourbon. All tequila is mezcal, but not all mezcal is tequila. So mezcal is your whiskey, it's your umbrella of thing. Okay, I thought it'd be the other way around. Yeah, me too. No, it's it's yeah. So tequila is made in a particular section, only made with blue agave. Mezcal can be made with multiple things, multiple different types of agave.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Mezcal would be the older spirit here, yes, and tequila would be like the fancy younger. Exactly. That's very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

I know I did not know that when I started that.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

I thought tequila was a term for alcohol in that area, basically. Oh, so no, uh, it's mezcal for alcohol.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

The people that make mezcal or tequila, because tequila is a type of mezcal, is mezcaleros. The mezcaleros.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

I was about to ask what does mezcal mean, but by the ages. I think it's just a made by the mezcaleros. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Yep. So it's made with agave hearts, uh, which are called pinas, kind of like pineapple, because it's kind of what it looks like. Sort of, yeah. It almost looks like aloe. It kind of looks like an aloe plant.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Different sizes depending on the type of it is, but they cut off all the things and keep the hearts, but it's made by taking those hearts and then like roasting them in a pit. They like bury them in a pit for a few days. Then they take a like a stone wheel and crush them up, usually controlled by a horse or an ox.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Or they used to make grain.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

And that's still how it's made most of the by most most people. Isn't that what uh Samson was doing at the end of his life there? And you remember this story from Samson. Oh, and they put him at the they put him at the grinding wheel. Oh, in the grinding wheel, yeah. You like push it around, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

But I think it was more of a mill for grain, it wasn't for tequila. That's what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

It's like, yeah, it wasn't for tequila.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

I was like, Oh, making tequila back in? Maybe, maybe Mexico's in the Bible, don't you know? It was there. Romans, bang, yeah, but it yeah, they roast it for a few days, then it comes out, and then they crush it with these wheels and they distill it in pot stills. But a cool thing to look for in your tequila mezcal searches, look for on there for it to say distillado and barrow. Bottle and bun.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

No, that's what it sounds like.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Distilled and destillado is definitely distilled. Yeah. In and borrow. B-A-R-R-O. Barrow. Oh, like the barrio. And so what so what that means is that they're still using clay pot stills.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

Bar barrel b-a-r-r-i-l? Maybe, yeah. I think it's baro. That's what I think.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

But I don't does that is that distilled out and borrow.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

Well, this says barrow br I L. But does it does it start with the rest of it like that?

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Destalado? Nah, destalado. Nah. Okay, then no, this is something different then. But if it says that, then it's they're using clay pot stills. Oh, to make it instead of instead of like traditional copper or whatever, they're making they're using old school clay. Well, I wonder if that's where they're getting some flavor from.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

But so we talked about how scotch was created, right? We went way back on like scotch whiskey, right? And the idea of it starting with clay pot stills, I didn't know that anyone still did that.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Those things, I mean, those things like absorb heat and they and they expand and contract, and they they uh soak in flavors and they impart different things. It just makes sense to make a distillate in a clay that's so interesting, and that's very old. Very old, very old, yeah, like green, like grease and whatnot, where they were doing stuff with clay, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Like, and so these guys are not. This particular brand doesn't seem to be, but if you can find one that does that, probably pick it up. That's probably a pretty decent pretty interesting, you know. If nothing else, interesting. I don't know if it'll be good or not, but it'll be interesting. And also, tequila is never proofed down. So wait, what? Yeah, tequila or mezcal? Mezcal is never so tequila, also is never proofed down, so that means they they they distill it to the proof that they want and then bottle it. So this is 94 proof, I think, right? So that means they just distilled it up to 94 proof and then stopped, which is fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Okay, so because they don't age it, it don't have to worry about it getting higher in age. The only time they age stuff is reposado or whatever, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

So Brendan, who've had it on the podcast and was in part of the club, he is getting into home dis distillation thing, right? For whiskey for bourbon, it can't be distilled higher than 160. 100, I want to say it was 160, can't be distilled more than that. Which two runs through a still gets you too close to that 160. So if two runs through a still get you to that, yeah, and you can't prove and this is not proof down, then this might be like distilled once, like this might go through a still one time and then it's done.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Yeah, that's crazy. I would assume that they are maybe cooking it at a higher temperature so that more water is getting in with it, so it's not being distilled down to an ethanol. It's it's if you're doing a higher temperature, then you're getting water and ethanol at the same time. So that that's probably how they would do it to to make it go through more distillations if they wanted, but to keep more water in with it.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

But what's interesting is now my whole mindset of of mezcal and tequila is so different. Oh, it's because I was gonna ask a question of you know, what is an aged mezcal? What's repasado? Now I know that because I knew I thought tequila and mezcal were two separate spirits, they are the same thing. The way that uh cognac is a specialty version of brandy. That's so interesting. I thought it was the other way around. I thought mezcal was the specialty to tequila. I really thought that they were two separately, like there was something that was distinctively different about the two. And because I have seen mezcal that must have been aged, that was just said just said mezcal on it, because it was darker. But then I've also seen repasado, which means that is tequila that's been aged. So you can have age mezcal, but you can't call it repasado because it's not a tequila, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

It's not made in that particular section because tequila is a specialty version, it's a it's a smaller group.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

So if if the mezcal is aged, they can't they can't call it in yeah or extra.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

I don't know if they can't remember. I don't know about the pasado, couldn't call it reposado, probably. But also when you think of like like 1800 gold, like that's not aged, that they're just adding color to it, they're adding caramel to it. Did they add color to that?

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Gotta be kidding me. Really? I didn't know that. Well, no, I never had that stuff, but I mean, screw that stuff. Whatever tequila gold. Yeah, don't get gold. Okay, well, who cares about the color of things? It's about the taste. Because I have, you know, I think Blanco is just this, you know, it's it's it's not aged, which is fine. This is actually imagine this aged. I know, right? Holy cow! Like, what the crap would that be like? Because this has so much flavor, but what it is probably lacking is wood of some kind, right? Imagine like a reposado, like an extra or an or an extra aged.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Before we get into the flavor of this, do you guys remember when we gave this to Ryan blind?

SPEAKER_01 12:07

I wasn't there. Well, you how I so you guys were there? I was there, but I wasn't there when he gave it to the city.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

I said to tell him that hey, try this new scotch.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

So I told him we have to try something new, didn't say it was a scotch, didn't say it was a whiskey. I just said you can't look at the bottle. I'm gonna give you something to try. And so he grabs it and starts smelling and starts smelling. He goes, Did you give me white dog? Is this just like straight moonshine?

SPEAKER_00 12:27

I was like, Is it because he looked at the in the inside or something?

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Well, he he was smelling it and looked at it. He's like, It's clear, it's gotta be like moonshine.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Why would you have given it to him in something that wasn't clear?

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Yeah, and uh, and then he tried it and he's like, Is this like smoked moonshine? Like, what did you what did you give me? Like, I have no idea what this is. And Herm was sitting beside me, or like standing beside me when he was saying this, and I think Herm was talking to Blake at that point, or is talking to someone, and he just started cracking up because he was like side conversation hearing it, and he's already tried it. He's like, That's not that's not whiskey at all, buddy.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

That's tequila. I mean, if if you never saw the color of this and you tried it, I mean you would think it was a scotch or something. I think it was a some sort of scotch with something going on. It is very and you but you would definitely think it's an aged spirit, yes, for sure. Like, how are they getting this much flavor in something that is clear?

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Right. That's what I don't think they because this is these these pinas or this agave is is essentially smoked. I mean, it's put in a pit and like sits there for a few days up to a week. So is it it is it cover? Is it is there coal inside the pit or covering the pit? Do you know? I think it's covered, I think it's like buried essentially into into like a an almost like a hog. I was gonna say like a pig rose, like they do in Hawaii.

SPEAKER_02 13:39

They do that underground. So I'm I'm I'm still struggling with this, wrapping my head around this idea. So mezquel is whiskey for that area, tequila is bourbon, right? Exactly. Okay, so there's uh another special type of mezcal that I don't know if it came up when you were looking at this. I just I've gone down the rabbit hole, which is another reason why I'm struggling to wrap my head around this idea because there's a specific uh mezcal called uh mezcal? Which when I first tried this, I was like, man, this is like like someone made homemade this. Like, this is like in a village, you go and visit them, and like, hey, we've got our living. Yeah, they're like, we want to give this to you, we want you to try it. Like, this is homemade here. This is like our homemade wine, homemade moonshine. It's earthy, it's smoky, it's not normal. Like tequila, this is not tequila. You don't think tequila? This stuff is the exact same. So, this pechunia, whatever, is the exact same uh mezcal idea, but then they distill it three times because I think it says in a third distillate when they do it, they actually hang a protein over it, chicken, turkey, venison, so any kind of protein they hang over it snake, uh iguana, yeah, any kind of protein, and it it's almost like the vapor, it like the gin. So, if this is again, if this is the whiskey to get to tequila, what is that?

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Well, that's the thing. Well, what is that about it like whiskey? Like American single one is whiskey, Irish whiskey is whiskey. You know, all these are all things that fall under the umbrella of ice.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

I would almost say that a better comparison is is brandy and cognac because the ingredients are the same. Whereas with you're talking about bourbon and whiskey, the ingredients are different, different ingredients. But I think for what you're saying is I think mezcal and tequila are pretty much built on the same ingredients, just in different specif specified locations, correct?

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Specified locations and specialized specialized agaves. Agave. Yeah, well the types of tequila. Tequila can only use a blue agave. Right, right. Whereas mezcal can use multiple. There's no percentage or whatever. There's no percentage. Well, because that's yeah, it's I think that's it. It's always just agave.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

So I think that yeah, it's even more it's even more closely together. Tequila and mezcal is more closely together than bourbon and whiskey, because that's a broader term. I really think it would be like champagne and champagne France versus sparkling wine or or cognac and brandy. But when you're talking about bourbon and scotch, the really the makeup of the two is very different, like ingredient-wise, more different than teela, tequila and mezcal.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

It's almost like saying, so scotch is scotch, right? Even blended scotch is still scotch. But you talk about scotch and then you go, oh, it's made in this region, oh, it's made in this region. It's all the same, it's all barley, but it's just differentiates between like different regions.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

But they're not putting corn in scotch, right? Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

Like they are in in bourbon, yeah. Right. But I do find interesting. So one of my one thing I find fascinating with all spirits is what they decide to hone in on. Why did we come up with agave for tequila? I get that it's like your crop, but like at one point where they're like we can distill it.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

I was gonna ask which one came first? How long has Mezcal been around? And has it been around longer than bourbon? Wow, how about that? Yeah, I wonder how much longer. I mean, I bet medicine men were making this crap like way back in the day, right? Like it probably is like some sort of trippy, whatever spirit trip feeling.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

I mean, you know, yeah, you're on like way, way, way back.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Like we're talking like six, like, like six, like sixteen hundred or something or longer.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

So we're talking Christmas past and present on this one. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

I was just thinking all of a sudden it's the future, but it's probably been around longer than gin. Probably it may have maybe like the original firewater kind of a deal, you know, like for like the people down farther south, like yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

And because of just geography and history, like history was made east, it was made in in Europe and and and Asia. There's not a lot of talk about history in Mexico in terms of like not as much as there should be the when you think about Mexican history, you think of or or if you go way back, it's Aztecs and Incas, and that's kind of it.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

And that's just some like for it's just it's Native American history, the all more than it is South American because even when you talk about even more, oh, when you're talking about like the Garwani Indians or whatever they were, there was a lot of different tribes of Indians down in South America, in Peru, and everything else.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

I mean, but since they didn't write down their history, they were oral historians, they didn't write it down. So, because of that, a lot of their history is lost, so we don't know what they knew, and we don't know what they made because it was all lost.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

It was oral tradition, it wasn't written tradition. Imagine being from that culture and realizing that how much would that suck? Sucks a lot, but it's probably been passed down, you know. It's probably true, even with our uh Native American. Uh, there's probably a lot lost there, too, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

A lot of our native history is uh Native Americans were the same way, they were it was an oral tradition. So, because of that, you had a person that you would tell your stories to, and their their job was to tell those stories.

SPEAKER_02 19:05

Can you imagine? So the other day, I think it was Sunday, Henry started talking about something the some from movie or like a line from movie, and you're like, Oh, from like three years ago.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

I was like, How do you know that? We watched that like three years ago. Like you're only you're only six, that's half your life.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

Yeah, can you imagine being that person that the tribe was like, buddy, you've got a great memory.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

You're it's a gap for you. Yeah, you're the guy.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

Yeah, like the pressure on that one. Like, buddy, you have a great memory.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

We gotta use it. Yeah, it's just interesting to think about that. This potentially has been around for a long, long time, and then probably the processes have been different because I'm sure that they couldn't distill in the way that they do now, but I'm sure they were using agave.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

But they were using those cray pots and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

I mean, that's and whatnot, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

That technology's been around for a long, long time.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

So there's something with the bottles that we've picked out for this, in my mind, the back of my mind, I helped pick them out with the idea that it's still somewhat involved with whiskey. There's something about smoking the spirit, or not even the spirit, but the grain that completely changes the integrity or the com down to the compound level of whatever it is that my body can handle them. Normal tequila, Chris can tell you I don't sit and sip normal tequila. I'll have it in a margarita pasta. I'm like, yeah, that's smoke too. But I'm like, eh, that's a mental thing. Very different, yeah. Maybe it's a mental thing.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

But yeah, you don't, you don't, it doesn't hold on to the smoke. It doesn't have the same like right.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

So, like Irish whiskey, there's some that use peat or like peated barley. That is a completely different, maybe my it's maybe it's a mind thing because it's a completely different flavor. It changes how our reaction to it.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

I think the your reaction that you've always talked about all these years, I think what it really is is the difference between a higher quality level and a super low quality level. And I think when people typically drink tequila or this case, mezcal or whatever. I think what we are really doing is scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel. And like you wouldn't drink that level of bourbon. Like nobody would drink that level of bourbon. Like you're talking like probably like uh Kessler's level of bourbon, right? Like with the additives and crap, and you're like, I wonder why I feel like crap the next day. Because you're drinking basically neutral grain spirit with color recorded, like color added. I think that when people drink tequila and they say they have a bad reaction, it's because they are drinking some really terrible shit in a decently looking, decent bottle, and nobody knows, nobody has any uh freaking clue. Then all of a sudden you try a real mezcal, like for people that drink mezcal or tequila, and you're like, oh, why is this so much better? Like, I didn't have a weird thing. And we're talking about this is a $50 bottle. Like, this isn't or we're not breaking the, you know, the third wall here or whatever, fourth wall or eight wall or whatever that you call that expression. But we are talking about like finally, you're drinking something of no, like some somebody actually produced. This for drinking, you're drinking it, not produce this to sell money. Like the I think Americans drink really shitty tequila, like really crappy stuff. And then they wonder why they feel like crap. It's because they're not drinking the real deal stuff. Like go out and buy an actual bottle of tequila, and that's what I'm learning. I think that that has always been your reaction. It's not tequila, and what it's the cool cat. And now all of a sudden you're like, oh, I can tolerate because when I started drinking rap asado, nobody's gonna age crap mezcal or tequila. So I was like, oh, this stuff's great. But I think it's because it's actually a decent product that they they took the time to age because they're it's a decent product. So all of a sudden, you know, when you're getting an age mezcal, it's gonna be decent because who else is gonna take the time to age that?

unknown 22:46

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Which and that brings me to another point. Why are they not aging this stuff more? Because it's not like they need it, isn't that we're not going through, or maybe down there they are, maybe down in South America and out west, they're just going through it. But I'm like, do you need it that quick? You can't put like a couple years of age or 36 months of age on this, you know. I also wonder how much they're making at a time because if they have to have horses that are crushing up the penyas and stuff, like you're making probably pretty small badges, and maybe they don't have that much agave to go around the land and do all that. Yeah, and they can't, you're right, they can't proof it down, right? So what they what they yield is what they yield, right? And I wonder also aging. I wonder if aging down there wouldn't be great, like what they're doing. Cold at night, hot during the day, cold at night, out in the desert, you know. I but also what kind of wood do they have? Where would you age?

SPEAKER_02 23:40

It's more of like a desert land. So oak, yeah. What kind of wood do you have?

SPEAKER_00 23:44

That's a good point. There's no oak. And when we're talking like nowadays, we have modern conveniences. We're talking about back in the day. Did they have these things? They had freaking cactuses and sand.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

They would have been aged in in clay pots, yeah. Freaking clay pots, which is more than it's clay, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

It's gonna still kind of come out clear in 10 years.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

If it comes out any other color, that's probably not. That's a good point.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

I mean, that's why they use clay, they don't got that crap.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Yeah, I I mean, what I learned researching this is that I want to try more mascals. I want to, I think I can be a tequila guy. I think I can be a mascot guy. In particular, the something like this or Reposados that are aged.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

I was gonna say, now I want to throw my modern convenient. I do want an aged, I want to try this aged. Yeah, I want it, I want it to have some color from oak.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

But you gotta imagine so not from color because if we're going straight, if we're going for age, we're probably gonna be paying a heftier price tag, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Dude, I bet the most expensive bottle of tequila that you'd get it with that is probably amazing, yeah, would be still cheaper than an amazing bourbon.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

I don't know what I mean. A bottle of patron is like 60 bucks, which is cheap, yeah. And so you know, then uh I I I don't know that I've ever had patrons.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

I've stayed away from it because I thought it was a marketing thing, like Jose Query, or now you're talking about the freaking gold crap. Like I think it is just a brand that I don't care care anything about, you know.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

I I've seen some tequila bottles go up to like two, three hundred bucks.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

I mean, I'm sure they're you're talking about the nicest tequila ever. If you talked about any bourbon and said two or three hundred bucks, you wouldn't say it like that. But people already are kind of shitting on tequila when you talk about it that way. You think about it, and people have no problem spending that on a scotch, but all of a sudden you get tequila and you start getting a little sno like like stingy, stingy, you know. Like, I can't spend that on tequila, which hey, I've always been there too. But I'm starting to think that maybe that's not the like if you can get a a really good bottle for $200. I bet in bourbon terms, that's probably like a six-seven hundred dollar bottle. You know what I mean? It's really I bet it's that much cheaper. I bet it's that much cheaper. It's just different. It's just that's all it is. It's different, you know what I mean? So it's just not our first choice. You don't want to spend that much money, but you might be able to get in on some good bottles for cheap when you look at it that way.

SPEAKER_02 26:03

I was debating between this bottle for for today and another one that I actually opened with Chris. It was a store pick. Do you remember this? Chris. The it's uh Mastro Dobel. So that's the brand, right? Okay, uh Proximo owns them. I got to try when I was in Texas last year, I think it was. Uh they had a special release of that, and it was an extra in Yayo. I think we paid like $150, $200 for it and it drank like a bourbon. I mean, it was fantastic. It was aged, but I also struggled with the price tag. So I was like, because I I look at tequila as a cheap brand. As a cheap thing, or a cheap, a cheaper. If you look at mezquel, I will spend I would spend 200 bucks on a bottle of mezcal in a heartbeat because in my mind it's foot flopped. Mezcal is a higher end is a fancy version.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

It is, it's a fancy version of tequila. Well, see, I always feel that way about brandy. Well, it's interesting because I love brandy. But if you've ever noticed, there's cheap brandy and then there's very expensive brandy. There's no middle road, and you know why? Because you're either buying it cheap because you really don't know what you're doing, and you're just doing it for whatever reason, or you know what you're doing, and you've already like you're already at the level you're like, I'm not buying the cheap crap, I don't want middle of the road. I want to get something good. So there's only two types of brandy people out there. There's no middle of the road blunt brandy people. And a lot of people would never spend because if you look at some of the expensive bottles, you're like, I would never spend that for brandy. Brandy goes, you can get brandy all the way up to a million dollars a bottle. Like it's crazy. But good brandy, like the highest end brandy you can find in a store, is always gonna be around that three, four hundred dollar price point for a bottle of brandy. Nobody's gonna spend unless you like brandy. And I do, I do, but a lot of people would see that and would never they'd never spend $200 on a bottle of brandy because it's just not their thing. But they would on bourbon, no problem. But for me, it's uh for me, brandy is a little bit more of a delicate spirit, and I think it actually probably deserves oh I mean it definitely deserves that price when it's up when it's something special, you know, just because of all the stuff that goes into that, especially if it's a cognac from cognac, france, you know, France, and it's it's got all the I mean, they really kind of pull out all the stops when it comes to brandy, high-end brandy. But I bet you the same could be said for tequila, but it would always be a little cheaper because it's not popular.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

It's becoming really popular.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

Yeah. More people are getting going for it.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

We're sipping this straight. Or future. Neat, unchilled, with no not mixed, nothing. We're pouring this in a glass and drink. Did you ever think you'd be sitting around drinking at this point? We know this is tequila, right? It's mezcal, but it's the same thing as tequila. Do you ever think you'd be sitting around drinking tequila and enjoying it like this? Me neither. Me freaking neither. And if I had never, you know, stepped out, I still wouldn't, because I would I would assume tequila tastes like you know, every other like El Toro or Jose Cuervo. And I'm like, that's gross, but that's not the case. Opening my eyes, and then I think, like you guys said, it is the spirit of the future because I think there could be a lot more, not only a lot more done with it, I think more people are gonna come to this realization.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

But I think what we're gonna the realization I think we're coming to as as whiskey drinkers is that there are there's something past whiskey, there's something other than whiskey, right? So this idea that within the whiskey community, once you get past the the Kesslers, once you get past the the neutral grain, the cheap stuff, you start diving into quality. And once you start diving into quality, you start going, huh? So bourbon is American, Scotch is Scotland. So you've got different regions, different countries that are making stuff out of their own uh grain. This this could be called whiskey for all we know, right? This this could be whiskey, but it's what Mescal could mean, basically.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

It might mean the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 30:11

It could be like the Mexican or South American version of whiskey, and we call it something different, you know what I mean, or they call it something different than what we would consider or call whiskey. But I think we're starting to realize as we progress in the quality of whiskey, we start to realize there's something else out there from other countries that carries the same quality that could be enjoyed. And it's no longer, once you hit that quality aspect, it's no longer moonshine where we're just drinking to get drunk.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Well, that's all about, yeah. Right. Like this is now becoming a conversation, right? If you thought that you wouldn't be listening, I and I think when you're talking about a uh a spear like tequila or mezcal on this point, what you've been describing to me, uh Steve, is not something I ever associated with this. It's craft.

SPEAKER_03 31:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

I mean, it is very craft. When you're talking about they're they're using a freaking stone and and to grind this stuff up in pots and they're they're they're roasting this stuff on the ground for a while. Like, I have never associated Mezcal with craft or tequila with craft. But what you're saying to me is more craft than a lot of spirits out there, and that's really kind of changing my whole opinion on this stuff. Like, it's not cheap junk, whatever, like it's you know, done right if it if you get a good bottle of it. I it's not if you don't get a mass-produced bottle, but the idea of a craft mezcal is very appealing to me now, very interesting. It's hard to get, and I think if anybody's turned off the idea of the flavor, if you've never had anything other than like cheap tequila, yeah, try it because you I think you'll be surprised. Because I it used to be the same way. I think the flavor always turned me off because it was cheap junk, you know. Like that's not the case here. Like, I just can't believe I can't get over that this is unaged spirit and that it's made with freaking agave and whatever, you know. Like, I don't know. It's really good. I I might be on the market, like in the market for some.

SPEAKER_02 32:08

I agree again too in Ohio, incredibly hard to find. Yeah, I even outside of Ohio, Mezkel in America is really hard to find. I bet out west it's not. Because maybe out west, west and south, probably not harder to find, but it's such a distinct flavor. It's not tequila, right? So it's more like a scotch to where people are like, ooh, that's ooh, ooh, like, oh, that's uh I don't know. It's a flavor.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

It's a flavor. It's a flavorful. It's pretty intense.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

And like I said, to have this one be labeled as a light version of a mezcal gets me excited. This is very much like an isla scotch, like it's a very the agave is pretty sweet, like agave flavoring or whatever. The the agave are sweet, and so it's a very sweet thing with smoke, which again it feels like it would be very American. It's very barbecue, like it's very like very barbecue, like a sweet barbecue sauce with liquid smoke or something, you know, added to it or whatever, you know. So it's fascinating to me that it hasn't really taken off as much in the US because of that, because it is very sweet. Like the smoke, like I said, I feel like if you were a barbecue person, this is something you would probably enjoy.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Yeah, I think it would go good with barbecue too. You know, uh agave is sweet. We uh use agave syrup all the time.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Agave syrup is a good replacement sweetener that we use. Loglycemic, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And we haven't talked about the tobacco at all that we've we're smoking. I don't even know if we said the name of it on here. So yeah, the the cigar shop up in Delaware just started carrying a lot more uh pipe tobacco. I was like, I gotta try something, I gotta pick up something from them, support it. And I went in, but it was mostly mostly aromatics, uh, like cherry bomb and a really big vanilla one. And I was like, uh, that's just not really my style. But I saw this one and I was like, all right. I read the back of it. It's like this look, this sounds okay. Read the bottom of that to say what all is in it there. It's a Cavendish blend.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Yeah. I'm it it's very just tobacco for me. Uh blended from a heavy-bodied Cavendish. Maybe that's why. This tobacco is made smooth by adding a mixture of Zimbabwe orange smoking grades and aromatic Thailand burley. It's mellowed using black pareek from Louisiana Bite. That's where I'm getting that. Okay. The Purique, yeah. I was like, this is a vapor, kind of, you know what I mean? But there's no uh Virginia or anything. This leaf is stored for many years in a sherry oak barrels, giving this tobacco mature oak and aroma. So you kept calling this a uh aromatic. I don't think it is. Yeah, it may not be. It's like it's a cavendish. They use cavendish, but it's full-bodied and it's not topped or cased or anything like that. And then they use different grades of burly and parik. So this is uh it's a kind of like a vapor without the Virginia, which is very interesting, and then the sherry oak barrels is interesting, dude. I I was gonna say I'm really enjoying this. It's very kind of just tobacco, you know, like good tobacco with some spice to it. It kind of reminds me of a of uh Mac Baron. And so it's called Irish Cask, and it's Peterson. Yeah, Peterson. This is definitely going on the list. It is, yeah. This is a great can't believe I've never tried it. And I think reading that, you wouldn't maybe get all you might think it's more aromatic than it is.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

This is really lots of pieces to it there.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

There's lots of different things, but it's air, it's arrow more aromatic than most. But if you're a pine smoke, it's not an aromatic, don't be scared. This actually tastes fantastic, and it's got a decent room note. It's not sticky, it's not syrupy. I don't think they've used any toppings. It's really, it's just the the tobacco, the types of tobacco they used are aromatic naturally, kind of a thing. It's the least aromatic, aromatic thing that I thought I was gonna like. I did I thought it was gonna be goopy, kind of like Sherlock Holmes is aromatic. I mean, that is aromatic. This is not compared to that, you know. This is very good. You pick the winner, Steve, and I think it's going good with the mezcal.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

It is, I think it is going good with the mezcal. Maybe the purique is helping it a little bit with the spice, a little bit of a spice to it. I think that that's helping with the sweetness of the mezcal.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Adding pepper on gumbo, it just gives you a little bit more. I can see that almost like a rye spice with some smoke, dude. I was I can't believe I didn't read that earlier because I've been sitting here trying to rack my brain. I'm like, I just don't get it. And then I read that perique, I'm like, oh yeah, there it is. There it is. So it's like a barper. Yeah, like a barper, it's a barper. That's our new one, dude. You got any uh barpers around here? Yeah, those calf barpers, calf barpers, some of them orange grades now, Steve.

SPEAKER_02 36:57

Uh before we started this episode, you you mentioned that um there's a different traditional is it this is traditional thing or this is traditional.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

So you've heard with tequila that you're supposed to do the salt and lime thing. You put a little bit of salt in your hand to lick it and then bite into a lime. With mezcal, you're supposed to use a particular kind of salt, I'll explain it in a minute, and an orange. Do you do the same thing? Same same kind of system. You you could just sprinkle a little bit of the salt on the orange, would be fine. But this salt is made from the worms that you go in in mezcal. And so those are on the bottom. Yeah, the worm in the bottle is a marketing gimmick that started in like the 50s. Like, that's not a real thing. That's not a traditional type, not a traditional thing. No, that's a marketing gimmick thing. But this stuff is a uh gusano gran mitla, but it is ground up agave worm salt, so it's agave worm salt.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

Yep. So those worm could be used for tequila too.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Yeah, because it's the same. Yeah, can you imagine that on a margarita? Like a salted rim.

SPEAKER_01 38:05

Salted rim with this, like it.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

I mean, it's it's a pretty dark. They petrified these things and made them into salt, basically. I think so.

SPEAKER_02 38:12

Yeah, they probably like smoked them and then if you smell it, it's very smoky. Yeah, probably smoked it and then let it dry and blend it. I've seen a lot of people do that lately. They make their own flavored salts, so like sriracha salt, but they'll throw it on like the smoker and let it sit for like two hours and then they dry it out and blend it.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

And so, uh, yeah, so I'm gonna try a little bit of the salt just by itself and then then decide past the taste. Well, I'm gonna do it no matter what. It's the proper way of doing it. We gotta try it. You gotta try it no matter what. But I want to try some of the salt by itself just because I'm curious about it. If it just tastes like salt or if it's wormy. What does worming taste like? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

I mean, I've eaten I've eaten a worm from a tequila bottle, but uh what did it taste like? Tastes like a worm.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

What is a worm?

SPEAKER_00 38:58

Well, you know, go outside and try one. It tasted like you would expect it to. Like an undercooked piece of chicken. But when you're usually when you're doing that, you've gotten to that point, right? You don't like you don't open a bottle of tequila. Yeah, that's not your first glass. Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah, you don't open a bottle and like pour a little out and the worm pops out and you do it. You know what I mean? So usually by the time you get to the worm, you're to the point where you're not gonna really remember that much about how the worm tasted. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, you eat the worm because you finished the bottle, right?

SPEAKER_02 39:30

So, side note, have you guys ever noticed that we equate everything flavor-wise to chicken? It's never like oh, undercooked beef, or oh man, that tastes like beef. Everything is tastes like chicken. Do we why do we why do is that a cultural thing?

SPEAKER_00 39:45

Is it you already take the sip or did you just do it? Oh, now you're gonna sip it. Okay, so you do it before or after folks.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

I did it after. Oh man, this is like meaty. Yeah, the salt is very just smoked salt, it's very salty, it turns out. Well, you used to honk, you used to hunk the salt. I did a chunk and uh yeah, I put it just right on the uh on the orange, and then I I took a took a drink after. Right, okay, you're gonna go, you're gonna go put it the palm.

SPEAKER_02 40:14

Okay, how used to do it party over here today.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

We we definitely used to take a lot of these shots, and again, like I said, I was so ruined because of all the now.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

The proper way of doing it, do you do the shot first? Shot first, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

Okay, shot first, okay. And then the lime wedge or in this case the orange, and then the salt, and then the like of the salt, okay. Or you could do the salt and the the lime. I think that that's actually how it normally is.

SPEAKER_02 40:38

I can see this going very well together.

SPEAKER_01 40:41

That's very pleasant. It it is, it's very nice. I feel like the salt and lime thing is almost like uh it's like a pain point. It's like the lime is so this is more friendly than that. Sour. Yeah, this is very friendly.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

It actually adds to the drink. Yeah, it doesn't just like take the bite away or give you something to to focus on, which is typically why you do that. I know this may sound weird, but it the salt turns this into scotch.

SPEAKER_02 41:05

Like it gives more of like an earthy, more of like a depth. I like that salt.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

I do too. It's good salt. Yeah, wow. I like that salt. Let me get a little bit more of that salt. I would put that on a steak or something. Oh, a thousand percent. I'd put that on like chicken. I was just about to say steak and eggs. This kind of sounds like a good idea. Let me just give myself a little on my hand here. Can you imagine? Oh, that with some smoke. So this is worms. Yeah, this is just worms.

SPEAKER_01 41:31

They they don't look like worms, but did you ever eat meal meal worms as a kid or anything? I'm not sure what that one is. What's a meal worm? Meal worms.

SPEAKER_02 41:38

It's something you have for a meal.

SPEAKER_01 41:40

Tapeworms? No, they're they're like uh they kind of look like the worms that are in in uh in in tequila or whatever, like the same look, but they're dried out, and you I think you feed them to like lizards and stuff, but you can buy them for yourself, and you can buy like just mealworms and eat them. Oh, it was like a thing that you would do. No, I never did that. Uh yeah, so they're kind of like that.

SPEAKER_02 42:00

So the agave worm spends its life eating only agave pulp, reaching its adulthood. We carefully select and extract it. The worm is then dried and carefully ground with hand-harvested Oaxacan sea salt and dried chilies. Chilies, okay. So it's not it's not smoked, it's the chilies.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

You know what I think it is? I think I'm actually enjoying the addition of the orange in the in the mezcal. I agree together, and actually, like, you know what tequila sunrise that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 42:34

Absolutely, it does.

SPEAKER_00 42:35

It makes sense now because I I don't think I ever equated that together, and I don't even know if I've ever actually really had one, but the idea of like a screwdriver, basically, with mezcal is interesting to me and appealing, and I want to try it. I think that orange juice and the mezcal go together pretty well, at least a good mezcal. Interesting. I like it. I like that salt. Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

I do too. I'm glad I'm glad I found that. And yeah, I think it added to the mezcal a lot.

SPEAKER_02 43:00

I can see this being a tradition instead of the worm in the bottle. I can see the tradition of utilizing the worm for the salt with chilies and having that with a food, like a meal, and this beside it.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

So is the agave kind of plagued with these worms? And that's why they're kind of like it could be. This might be a pest. I wonder if worms have ended up in tequila just because of the simple fact that they couldn't keep them out. Just pest, yeah. And then it became kind of like, oh, we'll put a worm in the tequila kind of a thing. Actually, if I was a company, that's what I would do. If someone got a I got a worm in my bottle, uh, we do that on purpose. That's like a special trademark thing that we do, you know what I mean? Oh, you got two? You got two? That's a double special, right? Yeah. That's the gold right there. Yeah, that's a collectible right there.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

So, yeah, I think uh Mezcal is definitely a future drink for us, it seems. Do you think Mezco's gonna become the future? You know, I don't think it was the I still don't want to be. I think it's gonna get more popular. I don't think it's gonna be the future. I think it's become more popular, I think it's gonna become more popular. I'm hoping that that means we'll get more brands. We'll get we'll get some more in that yeah, we'll have a bigger selection.

SPEAKER_02 44:08

More brand that we import.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

They'll have to be imported. Yeah, because we can't make it. Although there are lots of people that are making agave spirits. And so they're you know they're making calling them or tequila because it's you can't because it's not from those regions, but they're calling it agave spirits. When we went to uh uh two name brands, name brand name brand. They had they had their own agave spirits. My question is doing that at this point.

SPEAKER_00 44:36

How are you sourcing your agave? I think you would have to source your agave. But then are you smoking it? Are you getting it and smoking? Are you getting it pre-smoked?

SPEAKER_01 44:45

I I would guess that you are getting the ground up and everything. Ground up like it's already done.

SPEAKER_02 44:50

And some are so Journeymen just released their agave spirit. They are not touching the spirit itself, they are importing, they're sourcing the tequila. And since it's theirs, they have to call it agave.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

But they're not making it. You'd almost be losing out at that point if you if someone was doing it themselves and not doing it by hand the way that but they're using their own stills, so they're not using the clay and whatnot. But I still think as far as tequila goes, or or uh agave, for me, I think it's for me, I think it's gotta be authentic. I think I want to see it where it was made. I think I want to see it in those cool ceramic bottles. I'm gonna be getting myself some of those. Have you seen these? They come in cool ceramic bottles, yeah. But I think I might you might see a shelf appear at some point of some mezcal, yeah. I think it's on the list. I think it's on the list.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

I think so. Yeah. So uh definitely a a spirit of the future for us, and I think it is something that more people will try. I think it'll it'll definitely at least become more prevalent in that way. I don't know that it'll take over, but it'll become more popular. It might take off a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 45:57

Yeah, I don't know that it'll take over, but I think it'll compete.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

Yeah, I don't think it'll ever it'll never be the thing, the spirit.

SPEAKER_02 46:04

But I think it might compete enough that it brings bourbon down for us to get him at a decent price.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

I think a little bit. I and I think you're gonna see it more in high-end, these high-end uh taco joints and stuff. I think people really kind of gravitate to it. And I think you're gonna see more of the higher end good selection type stuff in those players. I already have, I already do see you know, more of that stuff. I've I definitely have had cabo wobble, which is not a that's an American of that who those Jimmy Buffett's or it was somebody's, yeah. But stuff like that, you're starting to see more brands come out.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

Yeah, a lot of celebrities are making tomatoes, right now.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

It's a celebrity thing.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Guys with Futured Finished. All right, on to the next. Thank you for listening to the podcast. If you want more great content and other perks, be sure to support the show by clicking the link in the show notes. We can be reached on our website, whiskeychaserspa.com, with any ideas for the show. Thanks again.