Mezcal Archives - First Pour Cocktails

Mezcal Vago Elote

Sight: Clear.

Smell: Honeycomb, jalapenos, and fresh cut flowers waft out of the nose. Hints of herbs, smoke, and citrus run down the edges. Touches of tropical fruits join in giving a levity. There’s also a woodsy sort of perfume. as well.

Sip: The start is light, bright, and with a slight salinity. The elements of green peppers and honeycomb combine with smoke and perfume like notes. There’s not really any sweetness, but the body has a thick weight. There’s quite a bit of citrus and pepper here.

Savor: The ending is perfumed, laced with citrus, smoke, and herbal notes. There’s a touch of bitterness here that lingers.

Mezcal Vago Elote is much less smoke forward, and much more perfumed. There’s some beautiful floral and woodsy flavors that mix heavily with citrus and green herbs. The overall profile is really complex, and is enjoyable to not only sip on it’s own, but strong enough to stand up to other flavors.

In Cocktails

In our Rising Sun testing cocktail, Mezcal Vago Elote is the star of the show. The citrus, honeyed notes, and smoke all come to the forefront balancing beautifully against the richness of the maraschino spice and brightness of the lime. The grapefruit gives a punchiness and the entire experience rounds out with touches of herbs. The balance is actually perhaps better than our run with Bozal Ensamble thanks to a reduced penchant for smoke, but both end up being very good.

Toro Bravo’s Rising Sun

Mezcal Vago Elote Overall

At almost $50 a bottle, once could argue that Mezcal Vago Elote is expensive. However, considering the smoothness, the complexity, and overall sippable nature of this agave based spirit, it’s right in line with some of our top priced tequilas – like Casamigos and Siete Leguas. Unlike the tequilas, there aren’t as many down range mezcal offerings that will make as balanced a cocktail. For that reason, we recommend Mezcal Vago Elote if you’re looking for a reasonably priced mezcal that offers great value and a genuine handcrafted personality.

In general, there’s a diminishing return with liquor ingredients in cocktails. This isn’t to say that a Weller Antique 107 or Elijah Craig Barrel Proof Manhattan isn’t going to be significantly better than it’s lower tier counterpart, but the $25 – 50 a bottle difference in price may not reflect as clearly with other ingredients involved. The joke would be something like taking Johnny Walker Blue Label and mixing it with diet coke. You can obviously do you (if you have the means), but perhaps for the rest of us, the question of scalability comes into play. Bozal Ensamble illustrates this difference in a smaller band, showing off the bottom of a higher grade of Mezcal

Bozal Ensamble

While Bozal Ensamble can be found in the mid $40 to low $50 price band, it still could be considered a little high compared to something like Del Maguey Vida which can go as low as mid $30s. If you are particularly into agave spirits, like Tequila or Mezcal, you’ll recognize the step here for artisanal quality most likely justifies price. Especially considering Mezcal can easily range up in the hundreds of dollars. But what’s the juice inside that intriguing ceramic bottle really taste like?

Sight: Clear

Smell: An amazingly complex nose leads with a sweet, caramelized, roasted agave smell wafts forward. Mixtures of smokiness with touches of flowers and tropical fruit come together creating a pungent mix with just a hint of heat. Touches of lime, green pepper, honeyed pineapple, and agave funk come forward with pink peppercorn and herbs.

Sip: The start has an amazing degree of sweetness that gives way to a savory flavors. As the sweetness fades, touches of pepper, agave, green herbs and peppers mingle with almost tropical notes. There’s a linger smoke to the background that builds, and there’s little to no burn all the way through.

Savor: The finish lingers beautifully mixing hints of tropical fruit with a strong agave and smoke background. The complexity gives touches of citrus, herbal, and spice.

The words to describe Bozal Ensamble are lacking, not for lack of flavor, but for the complexity of this mezcal. While you can buy cheaper Mezcal, the beauty of Ensamble shows what good Mezcal can be, without costing an arm and a leg. The flavor profile is so dynamic, and the flavor so complex, that just sitting and sipping you can keep finding new elements. Make no mistake, this Mezcal is certainly good enough to sip on, on it’s own.

In Cocktails – Developing a Testing Process for Mezcal

Unlike Tequila, there aren’t a host of ready made applications to pull from for tasting Mezcal in. There’s a plethora of reasons for this, ranging from that Mezcal can be more artisanal (and therefore expensive) or that Mezcal is just plain more aggressive in some of it’s flavor profiles. As a result, it took some experimenting to find a drink that’s more or less clean enough to evaluate the Mezcal. What I settled on is a drink called The Rising Sun from Toro Bravo that’s detailed by Saveur through the link.

The reason I chose this particular cocktails is because the flavors (lime, grapefruit, some salt, and maraschino liqueur) are good complimentary flavors that allow the Mezcal to demonstrate itself without disappearing. The similar to a daiquiri, there’s not a whole lot of additional conflict here to process. The resulting drink is bright, a little nutty, and mezcal driven. Bozal Ensamble shined nicely in this application, showing off a nice strong agave and smoke backbone, while adding to the touches of citrus, herbal notes, and touches of tropical fruit. The maraschino liquor balanced well, showing off it’s character without being overpowered or overpowering the mezcal.

To fully understand the comparison, we used Del Maguey Vida and Olmeca Altos Plata in the main role. Blanco tequila is insufficient here to provide the depth delivered by Mezcal. Del Maguey Vida serves as a great parallel to the Bozal Ensamble, but it gives off additional smoke that lingers and a hint of rubber. By no means is it bad, but rather it lacks the refinement of Bozal Ensamble.

Based on this, we’re going to keep using The Rising Sun from Toro Bravo as originally detailed on Saveur’s site to continue to test mezcal drinks.

Bozal Ensamble Overall

Bozal Ensamble is an eye opening Mezcal if you’ve been used to having lower quality Mezcal or are unfamiliar with Mezcal. The price point hovers in the mid $40s to low $50s, meaning this isn’t the cheapest option available. The step in quality is substantial though, and while Del Maguey Vida can certainly work and serve as a modifier, it won’t be as pleasing on it’s own or as refined in more delicate applications. For these reasons, we advise the extra splurge to pick up Bozal Ensamble, and expand your knowledge of agave spirits.