What is the difference between mezcal and tequila?

Tequila is technically a type of mezcal, made only from blue agave in a few regions. Mezcal can be made from dozens of agave species, and each one tastes different.

How many days do you need in Oaxaca for mezcal?

At least three days, enough for the tasting rooms in Oaxaca city, a guided day trip to Santiago Matatlán and a cooking class.

Where can I taste mezcal in Oaxaca city?

In Situ and Mezcaloteca are two wonderful tasting rooms in Oaxaca city.

Is a palenque visit worth it?

Yes. At a palenque, a maestro mezcalero explains how he reads an agave's maturity and you taste straight from the still. Santiago Matatlán, which calls itself the world capital of mezcal, is the place to go with a private guide.

Oaxaca Mezcal Guide: Palenques and Tasting Rooms

Q: What do artesanal and ancestral mean on a mezcal label?

Mezcal can use more modern equipment, mezcal artesanal uses traditional methods like pit roasting, and mezcal ancestral is the most traditional of all, distilled in clay pots.

Tequila is technically a type of mezcal, made only from blue agave in a few regions. Mezcal is the bigger, older family. And Oaxaca, which makes the large majority of Mexico's certified mezcal, is its heart.

How do you plan a mezcal trip to Oaxaca? Give it at least three days. Taste at In Situ and Mezcaloteca in Oaxaca city, spend a day in Santiago Matatlán with a private guide visiting a palenque, and add a mole negro cooking class at Casa Oaxaca. Learn the labels first: mezcal, artesanal and ancestral.

Key facts

How long: at least 3 days in Oaxaca.
Tasting rooms: In Situ and Mezcaloteca in Oaxaca city.
Day trip: Santiago Matatlán, which calls itself the world capital of mezcal. Go with a private guide.
Reading a label: mezcal can use modern equipment, mezcal artesanal uses traditional methods like pit roasting, and mezcal ancestral is distilled in clay pots.
Caviar trip:The Mexico Wine Country Experience is a wine week, not a mezcal one, in Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California. That's Mexico's far northwest, a long way from Oaxaca.

Understanding Mezcal

Agave hearts piled around a smoking earth pit at a mezcal palenque in Oaxaca Photo: analuisa gamboa / Unsplash

While tequila uses only blue agave, mezcal can be made from dozens of agave species, and each one tastes different. In the traditional method, agave hearts are roasted in earth pits, crushed, fermented, and distilled in small batches, often by the same families for generations.

Bottles are labeled by how they're made. Mezcal can use more modern equipment, mezcal artesanal uses traditional methods like pit roasting, and mezcal ancestral is the most traditional of all, distilled in clay pots.

Claire's Oaxaca Mezcal Trail

Aerial view of Santo Domingo church and its garden plaza in Oaxaca city Photo: ryan doyle / Unsplash

Give Oaxaca at least 3 days. In Situ and Mezcaloteca in Oaxaca city are wonderful tasting rooms, and an easy first evening.

A visit to a palenque (a mezcal distillery) is something special: a maestro mezcalero explains how he reads an agave's maturity, and you taste straight from the still. For the full experience, plan a day trip to Santiago Matatlán, which calls itself the world capital of mezcal, with a private guide.

If you want to sleep at a distillery, book Casa Silencio in the Tlacolula Valley. It's a mezcal house with suites among the agave, and it holds two MICHELIN Keys.

A suite and its garden at Casa Silencio, the mezcal-distillery hotel in Oaxaca Photo: Courtesy of Casa Silencio

Agave plants on a hillside above a green mountain valley in Mexico Photo: José Castillo / Unsplash

Pair it with a cooking class at Casa Oaxaca, learning mole negro with a glass of espadín in hand. You deserve that kind of slow afternoon.

Oaxaca sits in the middle of the circuit in my Mexico luxury travel guide, right after a few days of eating in the capital. My Mexico City food guide covers that part.

Explore Oaxaca's mezcal heritage with Caviar in the Air, one slow copita at a time.

6X Condé Nast Traveler Top Travel Specialist with 65+ countries visited across all 7 continents.