Mezcal

The king of mezcal cocktails.

No booze required for this soothing green tea toddy. But if you do want an extra dose of warmth, we like this with smoky mezcal.

This make-ahead cocktail is lightly smoky and wonderful with dessert. Adding water along with the ingredients, then freezing the batched drink, means you won’t need to shake it over ice.

This cocktail gets its lofty, fluffy froth from egg whites and two-step mixing technique. The first shake, without ice, helps create the foam. After adding ice, the second shake chills the drink and further aerates the whites.

Think of this cocktail recipe as a more boozy, more delicious, and just as pretty Aperol spritz.

You can find loose hibiscus flowers at Mexican and Indian grocers, but if not, use 6 hibiscus tea bags instead.

A perfect meringue dessert, with its fissures and epic swirls, also presents a beautiful landscape for garnishes. If you were able to shrink yourself to approximately one inch tall, this dessert would be the gnarliest surf breaks frozen in time.

Smoky mezcal, tart homemade grenadine, and a splash of sparkling wine give this twist on the tequila sunrise a modern upgrade.

This smoky blush cocktail features Cappelletti, a Campari-like aperitif that shares its ruby red color but is slightly less sweet and not quite as bitter.

A boozy whiskey cocktail that's equal parts mezcal smoke and festive sweetness, thanks to a warm, spice-infused maple syrup.

With the help of barman Euclides López, I fashioned a Mexican rendition of Audrey Saunders's French Pearl using two staples of Puebla cuisine: mezcal and fresh oregano.

El Molino refers to the "mill" used to grind fresh-roasted cocoa beans into chocolate.

I spiked this spiritous Michelada with smoky mezcal and seasoned it with celery bitters.

Bartender's Notes: As you read through this recipe, you'll notice that it mirrors pretty classic margarita proportions … with the addition of orange bitters. Bitters work their magic here, as they do in many drinks, by adding depth, complexity and balance to otherwise pretty simple ingredients. And when you're mixing a drink with mezcal, that depth, complexity and balance are the hardest parts to achieve.

I absolutely love passion fruit, and the trees in southeastern Mexico, particularly one in my childhood friend Fernando’s backyard in Bacalar Quintana Roo, inspired this creation. Think of this dessert like a tropical layered cake filled with the exquisite tartness of passion fruit and topped with a silky, sugary meringue. Avoid using mezcal with a worm in the bottle because they are, for the most part, not the best quality. You will need a blowtorch to caramelize the meringue topping, or you can use a broiler or simply sprinkle with some crunchy meringue instead (page 160).

Donají is a delicious traditional beverage in the state of Oaxaca, named after a Zapotec princess. The exact ingredients of this cocktail vary, but typically it contains mezcal and orange juice and is served in a glass rimmed with sal de gusano, a powdered combination of chiles, salt, and roasted gusano, a caterpillar that lives on the agave plant. It may sound strange, but it is so good. If you ever travel to Oaxaca, you must try it. Although I haven’t seen donají offered as a paleta flavor anywhere, I think it’s only a matter of time, because the combination is delicious.