Mezcal cocktails
View all recipesMezcal also comes from agave, but the hearts are roasted in underground wood-fired pits, and that smoke stays in the bottle for good. It is not smoked tequila — it is a different drink, with a far wider range of agaves and a much more artisanal production.
In cocktails the smoke is an ingredient like any other, and it needs to be treated as one. Mezcal will steamroll a delicate drink, but it lifts any recipe that can take intensity: swap half the tequila in your Margarita and you will see what we mean. That half-and-half is the easiest way in without overdoing it.
7 recipes
Division Bell
Mezcal, Aperol, maraschino and lime. Phil Ward built it in 2009 on the bones of the Last Word, and in passing talked half of New York into ordering mezcal.
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Maximilian Affair
Mezcal, St-Germain, Punt e Mes and lemon. Misty Kalkofen named it after the emperor France installed in Mexico, and the drink tells that story without saying a word.
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Mezcal Mule
Smoky mezcal against spicy ginger beer. A bolder take on the classic Moscow Mule, and the perfect gateway into mezcal.
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Mezcal Negroni
The usual Negroni with mezcal instead of gin. The bitterness of the Campari and the smoke of the agave pull in the same direction, and the drink gains body.
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Naked and Famous
Mezcal, yellow Chartreuse, Aperol and lime in equal parts. Smoky, bitter and citrusy all at once, and it works first time because there is no ratio to get right.
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Oaxaca Old Fashioned
A modern classic born in New York in 2007: the structure of an Old Fashioned, but built on agave instead of whiskey. Complex, dry, with a smoky finish that lingers.
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Single Village Fix
A textbook fix: spirit, citrus, sugar and muddled fruit over crushed ice. With mezcal and pineapple it makes the easiest-drinking agave cocktail there is.
View recipe →What to mix with mezcal
The smoke in mezcal is so dominant that the temptation is to cover it, when the answer is the opposite: pair it with things that make room for it — citrus, bitterness, a measured sweetness — and never with plain sugar.
Bitters and agave
60 ml mezcal, a teaspoon of agave nectar, two dashes of bittersThe Old Fashioned structure applied to mezcal. Agave sweetens without introducing a foreign flavour, which is exactly what matters here.
Oaxaca Old Fashioned →Ginger and lime
50 ml mezcal, half a lime, ginger beerThe heat of the ginger and the smoke reinforce each other rather than fight, and the lime keeps the whole thing from turning heavy.
Mezcal Mule →Bitter liqueurs
Equal parts with Aperol, yellow Chartreuse and limeFour ingredients in equal weight and none of them wins. It is the proof that mezcal is met with bitterness, not sugar.
Naked and Famous →Red vermouth and Campari
Equal parts, 1:1:1The usual Negroni with smoke underneath. It changes less than you would think and improves more than you would expect.
Mezcal Negroni →Pineapple and lime
50 ml mezcal, 25 pineapple juice, 20 limeTropical fruit is one of the few sweet things that survives the smoke, because it arrives with its own acidity.
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What does not work:Very sweet mixers are the usual mistake: with cola or sugary juices the smoke does not disappear, it turns stale. And if your mezcal is a heavily smoked one, lower its measure before raising everything else: at 40 ml instead of 50, most of these mixes balance themselves.
