Less Than 3L Per Bottle And Stuffed In Suitcases, Cantina OK! On Its Latest Mezcal Haul From Oaxaca

As a food editor, I’m often asked about the balance between the stories I chase and the ones that simply land in my lap. This one in particular, was very much the latter.

It was late one Friday afternoon when I noticed my inbox light up with a pitch from Annie Hayes, events and partnerships manager at Mucho Group (Cantina OK!, Bar Planet, Tios, Bar Herbs):

“Not sure if this is something you'd cover—we have 18 new mezcals on the shelf at Cantina OK!, the team went on a field trip to Mexico in December and stuffed lots of yummy mezcals into their suitcases from the remote distilleries they visited.”

She was wrong on two counts. First, she undersold the pitch—a cardinal sin in the world of media. Second, of course we were going to cover it. The headline practically wrote itself.

Fast forward to a phone call with Mucho Group’s creative director, Jeremy Blackmore, the mastermind behind Cantina OK!’s spirits sourcing trip, I was swept into a travel odyssey most people only dream about: journeys to remote places “four or five hours from the nearest town" and driving “over dirt tracks, through mountains to get to a crazy cliffside village” in Oaxaca “with only 280 people”. It felt a little reminiscent of days from years ago, when I, a fledgling freelance writer fresh out of uni, wandered Oaxaca City with nothing but a 30L Kathmandu bag through the region’s culinary heart.

My time here taught me that Oaxaca’s history and culture are pretty inseparable from its food and drink. I still remember a story from my travels in 2018 which really sheds a light on this: the year is 2002, and local artist Francisco Toledo is staging a protest in the city’s central plaza. One by one, he pulls off each piece of clothing. The reason? McDonalds was planning to insert its Happy Meals and golden arches in the 500-year-old square, a move seen as a direct affront to the city’s history and pride.

Oaxaca is often called the heart of mezcal, and visiting makes that claim feel undeniable. This part of Mexico is a tangle of mountains, valleys, and remote villages, each with its own microclimate and approach to crafting this iconic spirit.

Making mezcal itself, is a slow, deliberate process steeped in centuries-old tradition too. Agave hearts, or piñas, are roasted in earthen pits lined with volcanic rock, smoldering with wood and charcoal. Once roasted, the piñas are crushed, fermented—sometimes in animal hides or wooden vats—and distilled in copper or clay stills.

“We’ve been doing this for quite a few years now,” Jeremy tells me, reflecting on the team’s annual sourcing trips.

“Every year we push a little further down. We’ve got two incredible guides, one in the state of Jalisco and the other in Oaxaca. We’ve been working with both of them for almost 10 years now, and they really know how to take us further.”

The most recent trip spanned 10 days in December but Cantina OK! has been bringing small-batch agave spirits to Australia since their first expedition in 2017.

“For years, we would just fill up plain water bottles,” he recalls.

“However, a couple of suitcases were stopped coming out of Mexico a few years ago, so now we do it a bit more formally, with little labels on the bottles.”

Jeremy tells me these trips are “really about buying, tasting, and building relationships with really tiny producers", an intentional process that gives the team space to push further into new territory with each visit. This year’s selection draws from agave spirits distilled in the ancient, remote village of Santa Catarina Albarradas, a cliff-hugging settlement perched some 1650 metres above sea level.

“Like a Galápagos Island, the isolation of this village has allowed the mezcal of this region to develop its own techniques and flavours,” he explains. 

“The practices felt so linked to the hands and the lands of the families there."

With 18 mezcals brought back from this trip, we had to press Jeremy for his pick of the mix.

“I’m really in love with this one from a really young mezcalero named Everado,” he says, continuing to dissect its kind of roasted and fruity flavour profile, with some notes of “animal” and “leather” in there too. On a good week, Everado will only make about 40 litres.

“Every step of the process was totally unique to him, but it also carries the history of his father and his grandfather. It’s all tied up in the bottle. Every time I drink it, I think about him and the hard work it takes to get that all in there."

The new arrivals come from nine different producers, each spirit shaped by regional terroir, local agave varieties, and the traditional methods of its mezcalero. Other highlights include a pechuga distilled with wagyu beef in San Luis Amatlán; a wild, intense, fruit-forward trio of mezcals from south Jalisco; and a rare collaborative spirit from respected Logoche distillers Hermógenes Vásquez García and Paula Aquino, who are also husband and wife. 

All in all, from this extremely limited-run of 18 small match mezcal, there are fewer than three litres of each, making them among the rarest agave spirits in Australia right now.

The 18 mezcals are now available at Cantina OK!, and will be available to order by the pour until they’re gone.

Image credit: Supplied