Inaequidens just isn’t my type of mezcal, and it was the bottle of the month when I joined Melate. I have tried Mal Bien Alto and it was pretty good, but not something I wanted to buy. Anyway here goes:

Nose is super sour and lactic, briny picked stinky greens, and chalk.

Palate: Sickly sweet fermented veggies and rotten fruit.

If anyone wants to buy the rest off me, send me a DM.

The smell hits you immediately. Green, grape, banana, cinammon and agave, this smells amazing!
The palate is an explosion! So many flavors going on. Initial fruit and brine, morphs into green grapey flavors that then go into fruit punch, greenness, minerals, salt and rocks and river water. This is like the whole world of mezcal distilled into one. This might be the ensemble that I’ve been looking for all this time!

Now that I’ve gotten more attuned to the flavors of each maguey, I can tell for example the mixture of flavors of bicuixe, madrecuixe and tepeztate. The others are in too small amounts to really tell, but it creates an amazingly delicious expression.

Sampled at Tortuga y Chango in Atlanta then went out and bought a bottle at Elemental Spirits Co.

Edition 75: 2019
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The version I tried at their palanque was much more complex, having a green vegetal taste almost like a karwinskii. Then I bought a bottle and it tastes much more like a run of the mill espadin.

The nose is nice and mineral, with a lot of clay notes even though it wasn’t distilled in clay.
The palate is roasted agave, minerality, and maybe a bit of pool water. A fruity, blackberry or grape-like taste comes out on the finish. This is supposed to express the terroir of Ejutla, but I haven’t had all the other versions to really compare.
I will probably end up using this as a mixer.

Lot 26 Justino Garcia Cruz.

Nose is aromatic tepextate, green funky pickled jalapeno.

Palate is funky, cheesy tepextate. A veritable garden mixed up in a blender and distilled. I was surprised how different this is compared to El Jolgorio, and this doesn’t hold a candle to that amazing spirit. Still, at a much lower price point it does work in a pinch.

My version of this mezcal is a 2021 edition from Camilo Garcia Gutierrez, sold at Elemental Spirits in Atlanta. JABCAM04-21

This one is extremely funky on the nose, very wild with hints of smoke and picked watermelon rind and overripe banana.

The palate is similarly wild, funky and mineral. Not too sweet and packs a punch of flavor at 49.4%. It wasn’t my particular taste and somewhat turned me off from jabali in general.

The bottle that I had was full-bodied tepeztate, full of the classic flavors: green vegetal, jalapeno, aromatic. The finish was long and mineral.

I tasted this one in Cozumel and was pretty surprised that the flavors seemed just like the espadin. I couldn’t really detect that this was a pechuga at all, but maybe my palate wasn’t mature enough back then.

One of the first mezcals I bought, and this is my go-to for cocktails. It’s not bad to sip, either. There are much better espadins out there, but for the price this hits a good sweet spot.

One of the first mezcals I bought, and I ended up using it to make cocktails. For that purpose, it’s adequate.

Green vegetation, mango, brine, model car paint.
Palate: peppers and metallic flakes. Some trunk of the plant with that classic cuishe taste. Brined, ocean seawater. Then juicy vegetation. Alcohol burn on the finish that really gets your tongue, so a deduction for that. The aftertaste is pleasantly vegetal.

Pretty much the quintessential tepeztate flavor. It has flavor in droves and a great mouth feel. Hard to get better than this!

Edicion 07 2022 bottle I bought in Oaxaca. Ignacio Parada.

This bottle has opened up and flavors have shifted and matured a few months after opening, unveiling an entirely new and altogether improved experience.

Nose: buttercream icing, funky agave/pineapple, earth and some sort of green vegetation. After a few months though, the funkiness goes away and it becomes spicy, a definite Tang (or what we called “Russian Tea” when I was growing up) spicy smell.

Palate: The essence that is Jabali agave. Pepper. A later tasting gets sweet cinnamon and gingerbread at Christmastime. TANG mix. Spicy earth and minerals. Delicous!

Okay mine is from Roman Sosa and December 2021, which doesn’t have a listing (please fix this).

Nose is of spring onions and grape seed, and new car smell.
Palate is smooth, deep grape and cracked peppercorns. Laffy taffy, river rocks and silt.

The nose is 100% Crayola crayons, when you opened a bug box for the first time as a kid.

Palate: Okay, so I’m not saying I ate crayons as a kid but this is the taste. BUT there’s so much more including the lactic green pepper taste of the salmiana.

Okay let’s compare it to Erick’s Pal’Alma. This is 60% compared to his 50%. This is a lot hotter tasting though with significant alcohol burn. The taste isn’t nearly as complex and it’s a LOT drier.

This is fun to have experienced but neither this nor salmiana are something I’ll be drinking for the rest of my life.

Nose: cactus like in the tacos you get in Mexico. Green pepper and jalapeño and funky cheese. BBQ sauce and grill ash. Corn.

Palate: GREEN with a capital G. Umami cheese, bell pepper, banana peppers, and honeycomb. Smoky, peppered beef off the grill.

This is incredibly smooth with almost no burn at all in the aftertaste. Crazy that it’s 50% as it drinks like half that. Hands down best salmiana I’ve had.

I love Emigdio’s madrecuishe and this is also excellent.

Clean nose.
Super floral on the palate. Delicious and spicy burn in the best way.
Like his others, this has a super long finish. I could still taste it in my mouth about 30 minutes later. Great mezcal!

Light creamy smoke and caramel on the nose with brown butter and toasted almond.
Delicious on the palate. Creamy, veggie smoke with floral notes. Notes of melon or cantelope, sweet potato and pumpkin.

I tasted this one at Bakan in Miami and it just tasted light to me. Later I bought a bottle 00520 in 2023 at 51% ABV listed as Ancestral and “Coyote Reserva”.

The nose is ash and smoke, a touch of grape flavor and is distinctively a coyote. On the palate, smoke and earth, grape seed and a touch of purple. It’s good mezcal for sure, and above average but not quite at the top level. It’s like the little brother of El Jolgorio’s black bottle, with maybe 60% of the flavor for 50% of the price.

Nose: Very unique from the first sniff. It smells delicious, like sweet raisin sauce on salty glazed ham. Other notes of almost overripe fruit.

Palate: Raisin sauce, super ripe pineapple, glazed and salted ham. Turbinado sugar. Woody piña trunk from the tobasiche.

Thick and viscous mouthfeel, yet smooth. It smells more alcoholic than it tastes.

This is very unique and delicious considering it’s an ensemble and Pechuga both.

Salty, chicken stock flavors, an easy sipper. Went though a bottle last year, but this is different and a lot milder than mezcals I usually drink.