The State of Mezcal: what 2,000+ scored bottles say

Every bottle in the catalog is scored on the same rubric, tasted the same way. The typical bottle runs $70 at 47% ABV, and price explains about 8% of its quality. All figures computed from the catalog's published reviews.

Key findings

1. Price explains about 8% of the variation in quality. Past roughly $60, the average barely moves.
2. Proof says more than the price tag. Bottles at 48% and up average 4.0 or better; under 42% the average is 2.5.
3. Nothing drags scores down like barrel age. Aged bottles average 2.7 against 3.7 for unaged joven.
4. The 5 celebrity-backed bottles cost more than everything else and score 1.7 points lower on average.
5. The editors and the public mostly agree (r = 0.92); nearly every disagreement is a barrel-aged bottle.
6. The best bottles are the hardest ones to actually buy. Scores fall steadily as store availability rises.

I. What you pay for

Price barely predicts quality (r = 0.29)

The correlation between price and score across the catalog is 0.29: price explains about 8% of the variation in quality. Average score climbs until roughly $60, then barely moves; the $90-149 shelf matches $60-89, and even $150+ adds only 0.2.

The wild-agave premium

Espadín runs $72 on average and scores 3.3; wild and semi-wild varieties run $97 and score 3.8. The premium is mostly earned.

The celebrity tax

Celebrity-backed bottles (5, averaging $109) score 2.0 on average; the rest of the catalog averages 3.7 at an average price of $90. With 5 bottles this is a small sample, but the gap is wide.

What each agave costs

Who overcharges, who delivers

The value list

Bottles scoring 4.0 or better at $45 or less.

II. What predicts quality

Proof is the better predictor

Bottles under 42% average 2.5; from 48% up averages run 4.0 or better. As a shelf rule, proof beats price.

The still matters more than the price tag

Every traditional still outscores copper on average, by 0.3 to 0.4 of a point, at prices only a little above what the copper bottles cost.

The barrel penalty

Reposados and añejos average 2.7 across 106 bottles; unaged mezcal averages 3.7. Nearly every bottle the public rates far above us is barrel-aged.

Ensambles edge out single-agave bottles

Multi-agave blends average 3.8, against 3.6 for single-variety bottlings.

III. The market

Critics vs. the public (r = 0.92)

Across 1,500+ bottles with community scores the two track closely (3.7 vs 3.8 on average); the widest gaps are commercial barrel-aged bottles the public rates far above us.

The hype check

Average scores sit basically flat across community-attention levels (3.8 / 3.7 / 3.7): the amount of buzz around a bottle says nothing about how it scores.

The best bottles are the hardest to buy

Bottles not stocked at any tracked US store average 3.7; bottles at three or more stores average 3.4. Distribution rewards the middle of the category, not the top.

IV. People and places

Oaxaca makes the most; the other states score higher

The maestro honor roll

Limitations: we choose what we review, so the catalog is not a random sample of the market. Prices are US snapshots from review time. Some slices are small; we flag them where it matters. Scores are one rubric applied consistently, not a consensus.

Method: scores are averages, with medians for every table in the data file; prices are averages where labeled, and a typical price is a median; editorial scores on the five-agave rubric; US prices at review time. Celebrity-backed means brands founded or fronted by entertainment figures. Wild and semi-wild covers agaves outside cultivated espadín. Findability counts stock at the US retailers we track for pricing. The study is recomputed annually.

Every chart here is free to reuse; just credit us with a link (CC BY 4.0). All the numbers behind them, including the full score distribution, are in the data file. Cite any figure with a link to this page or a section anchor. Questions, corrections, press: editors@mezcal.report. Updated July 2026.