Rey Campero Madre Cuishe Mezcal

It’s authentic Mezcals like this that makes us forget about Tequila for a sec.

Rey Campero (meaning King of the Countryside) is made by Rómulo Sánchez Parada in Candeleria Yegloe, a tiny village of 150 people in the mountains of southern Oaxaca. Rómulo learned to make Mezcal from his father and grandfather but the family’s roots in Mezcal go back to his great grandmother Clara Manzano Rios who built the family’s palenque in 1870 and began distilling with her husband Nicolas Sanchez. This was the first palenque to be built in Candelaria Yegolé. Flash forward more than a century, Rómulo finally got his Mezcal brand started in 2012. Today, Rey Campero is imported to the U.S. by Mezcal savant William Scanlan who runs the awesomely named Heavy Metl Imports.

Rey Campero Madre Cuishe Mezcal is made from agave that’s part of the Karwinskii family of agave. This means it’s harvested after 15-18 years before it’s roasted in an underground oven and fermented naturally in wood vats. It’s then double-distilled in a copper pot still by Maestro Mezcalero Rómulo Sánchez Parada. This sumptuous bottle is a fine example of why Mezcal is THE drink of the moment: its perfect balance of smoke, vanilla, ripe banana, and white chocolate on the velvety smooth palate comes at you so subtly yet so strongly, it’s hard not to love.