Todos Santos Mezcaleros Coyote

Verdict

Coyote at El Jolgorio caliber is the category's current reference – and Todos Santos Mezcaleros sits on the same shelf. Two producers, two disciplines, both rendering one of the rarest wild agaves at full volume. Buy whichever version you can find; coyote scarcity means any legitimate bottling at this caliber is worth the hunt.

Tasting notes

Nose: Lavender with hot stone, warm leather, a faint lactic undertone and trace of dried violet

Palate: Complex at 50.3% – coyote's rare character amplified by proof. The agave's floral-mineral register reads clearly without the tropical-fruit emphasis that marks commercial coyotes, and the clay-still texture the Jolgorio palenques produce gives the bottle weight the cleaner copper-still coyotes lack

Finish: Unending. Floral, drying, stone, with a slow leather fade

The bottom line

Worth chasing