About Mezcal Report

Independent reviews of mezcal. Neat, room temperature, in copitas, without food. Every bottle we can find, scored on one rubric.

Every review: nose, palate, finish, verdict. Proof, producer, agave, region, and price sit beside the notes. We taste before we read what anyone else wrote, and we score before we glance at the community number.

We taste before we read anyone else

How we taste

We taste every bottle neat, in a clay copita, at room temperature, no food. Ten minutes between bottles. Notes go down at the glass while we're tasting; memory isn't part of it.

The rubric

One to five agaves, half-agave increments. Three is the median: a mezcal that does what it should. We grade mezcal against mezcal. A 3 here is average for the category.

How we price

Every review lists a US headline price and the retailers we found stocking the bottle. We rotate through the national chains: Total Wine, Goody Goody, Spec's, BevMo, K&L, Astor, Old Town Tequila, Hi-Time, Mission, Caskers, ReserveBar. Plus a handful of mezcal-focused specialty shops. Prices and stock move; click through before you order.

What else you'll find

Producer, maestro, agave, region, ABV on every review. A community-score column where one exists. "Further reading" points to other tasters when their notes are worth comparing.

Bylines

Reviews byline to The Editors. We don't trade on names. Five-agave scale, every bottle, scored blind to price and blind to consensus. Panel rotates; the rubric doesn't.