Madre Mezcal Espadin

Madre Mezcal Espadin is a single-variety mezcal from Oaxaca, made for sipping and for mixing.

Espadin is the workhorse of Oaxaca, cultivated, reliable and maturing in six to eight years, and it carries more range than its ubiquity suggests. That range is the point of this bottling: mezcals from a spread of villages are blended so no single site dominates, the heart of it coming from Carlos Blas in Matatlan, whose family began distilling in the 1930s. Blas buys from growers around him and works the traditional way, honouring methods that have been practised in the district for centuries. Only the ripest agave makes the cut, and the spirit goes into recycled glass.

On the palate it is smooth without being soft, with green herbs, lime peel and a long earthy smoke underneath. Neat in a copita is the honest way to drink it. Otherwise pour it into a paloma, or over ice with grapefruit soda and salt.