|
Photo by Janaap Dekker |
When tasting more than one kind of agave spirit in a night, there is a favored progression in which to serve.
When San Francisco based Chef Agustín Gaytánhe offers his four-hour tequila, mezcal, and appetizer demonstrations, he follows a traditional method of sampling tequilas.
First he serves jovens, then reposados and finally añejos. Through tasting and discussion, Agustín helps develop people’s palate for tequila.
After sampling the entire tequila spectrum he introduces a bottle of mezcal.
Because people have already shown interest in tequila, “you don’t need to convince them, you need to educate them,” he says.
And learning to appreciate the rich smokiness of mezcal is his next lesson.
As for the order of serving mezcals, “since there are very few, you just give them the best,” says Agustín.
Getting back to those who vowed never to touch tequila or mezcal again, Mauricio Piccone of San Francisco’s restaurant Maya, says that with the right coaching, anybody can come back to the agave fold.
The trick, he says, is to break the psychology of that bad experience. “When they’re expecting a sip of a drink that they think is going to be hell and back, I serve them a very smooth añejo,” he says.
“That’s the best way for them to understand that there is a lot more about tequila than they previously thought.” And once they are surprised, “then they’re all mine,” boasts Mauricio. “That’s when they understand that the Pepe López they had in Tijuana wasn’t really tequila, just a bad joke.”