Dusty backroads outside Oaxaca City lead to small-batch palenques where mezcal is still made over wood fire, one clay pot at a time.
The villages along the mezcal route — Santiago Matatlán, Tlacolula, San Baltazar Guelavila — are strung along backroads where the smell of roasting agave hangs over the fields, and most palenques are family operations happy to walk a visitor through the whole process for the price of a tasting.
You'll see piñas roasted in earthen pits for days, crushed under a stone wheel turned by a patient horse, then fermented in wooden vats and distilled twice in copper or clay stills, each palenque's mezcal tasting distinctly of its own soil and wood smoke.
Hire a driver or join a small guided trail rather than renting a car, since the best stops rarely have signs, and pace your tastings — mezcal is sipped, not shot, and a good palenque will hand you an orange slice dusted with sal de gusano to reset your palate between pours.
