We had first heard about Tahona Mercado after sitting at the bar for dinner at Californios in 2022. It sounded like a really interesting place, but we never made it around to visit. And then after having such great experiences tasting mezcal in Oaxaca, I can remember sitting on the Aeromexico plane while we were waiting right after boarding and signing up for the mezcal club at Tahona Mercado. That was about a year ago and we still never made it to any of their events, but we finally did for this mezcal tasting.
The shop/market is a nice open space with all of the shelving of bottles, a counter/kitchen area (they also serve a few small dishes), and then a table set up for our tasting. Table was set for 13, but only 10 of us showed up.
We were greeting when we arrived and were provided some Tepache, a fermented drink made from pineapple rind and brown sugar. It was a pleasant easy drinking way to start.
There were four agave based pours for us to taste. Two came from Quiote Mezcalaria since one of the guys from there happened to be in town and he muled some of their offerings since they aren’t yet able to distribute to the U.S.
The first our was the Chacolo was described as not a mezcal or tequila because it is outside of the denomination region for what is legally called mezcal. This was made essentially as a field blend of a variety of agave. It was served up first as a more easy drinking with no smoke flavor and good for introducing mezcals to people who don’t like the smokiness of mezcal. It was a good refreshing start, although interestingly coming back to it after having tried the other mezcals made it seem a bit simpler, although still flavorful.
The second pour was our first of two from Quiote. This
The third pour was the limited batch production (36 bottle) of Real Minero Ensemble made with sierrudo, largo, arroqueno, and cuishe agave (no espadin here!). Of course, Real Minero is a already a favorite of ours from having done the tour and tasting there when we were in Oaxaca. This mezcal was was so rich a luxurious with a velvety mouthfeel and with a bit of unctuousness to me. Steven, our host/owner described it as being like banana bread and creme brulee. The power of suggestion is strong so I did get some banana bread on the front end (not sure about creme brulee), but I really relished this one, so of course we were going to buy one.
The fourth pour was the second from Quiote. This was also so different, even apparent just on the nose. This was one that double downed on the Filipino clay pots by fermenting and distilling in clay pots. I didn’t really get much from this one and it was actually my least favorite, but Andrea got some anise notes from it, but it did seem like it was one of her favorites.
Even though the official tasting was done, there were still more pours going around. Steven poured some limited production Macurichos which I also very much enjoyed (then again. of course, maybe it was just all the mezcal we had consumed already). This was my second favorite of the evening and Steven said I must like the high alcohol ones, lol, since this one was 65.3%. Sadly, this one wasn’t available for purchase.
Our co-host from Quiote then poured a couple more from more bottles out of his backpack. I don’t really remember the details on those two.
All in all, it was a fantastic little event and we were glad to finally visit the store (and we picked up some tamales, pozole, duck fat tortillas, seasoned salts, and of course mezcal).
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