Tucked inside Manhattan’s Freehand Hotel is Bar Calico, and on a Friday night, I was surrounded by effortlessly chic patrons and expertly shaken cocktails. The bar is inlaid with thick, rich wood and centered on a big, succulent cactus. I felt fully enveloped in the culture and vibes of the American Southwest. But inside that cushy room is a spirit with a sensual history. I’m talking about sotol, aptly named after the plant it’s distilled from, the sotol or desert spoon or Dasylirion cactus. This might sound pretty straightforward, but it took a fraught and arduous journey to get sotol from the Chihuahuan Desert of Mexico into a flight of glasses at Bar Calico.
Sotol has been around for hundreds of years, so why haven’t you heard about it? Maybe because it’s had a bad-boy reputation. The Indigenous people of the Chihuahuan Desert started distilling the sotol plant into a spirit as early as 800 years ago. It was a popular libation in Mexico and the U.S., being cultivated so close to the border. It was commonly smuggled into the United States during Prohibition, and Pancho Villa, the Mexican revolutionary, even had a secret location in El Paso where he kept a stash of sotol. For 50 years the spirit was outlawed in Mexico for its association with moonshine. In 1994, sotol was finally legalized there, and in 2002 it received its denomination of origin (DO). However, the right to cultivate and distribute sotol is still in contention in the U.S. due to the lack of a contract between this country and Mexico that would honor Mexico’s DO. Sotol is even considered by distillers a more sustainable alternative to agave spirits, since the plant flowers multiple times a year, while agave takes much longer to mature and harvest.
In short, sotol is finally legal and ready to mingle, but it may have slipped under your radar. Now the most important question: Why drink sotol? Because it’s as flexible and essential as your favorite pair of jeans. The resilient nature of the plant means sotol has been cultivated in three areas of northern Mexico: the desert, the prairie, and the mountains. Each area produces its own unique flavor profile. That makes sotol much more adaptable as a spirit to mix into any of your favorite cocktails. A desert sotol like Cardenxe Desierto is refreshing in a dry martini. A touch of Nocheluna sotol works wonders in a fruity cocktail for a minty, smoky twist. Forget all preconceived notions that sotol is simply interchangeable with tequila and mezcal, although it would taste just as delicious in a margarita. Sotol is the palate-expanding next step up. Darryl Chan, bar director at New York’s The Portrait Bar, tells Esquire, “For those that are fans of the ever-popular agave-based spirits, mezcal and tequila, I love including sotol on our bar program because it gives us a unique alternative option.” Places like Bar Calico, The Portrait Bar (in the Fifth Avenue Hotel), and Chicago’s Valedor are featuring sotol prominently in their drink selections, but if you keep your eyes open, you’ll find it popping up on cocktail menus all around you. People have been drinking sotol for 800 years; isn’t it about time you joined them?
Spread Out with Sotol
Now that you feel a bit more cozied up to sotol, which of the different types or flavor profiles should you start pouring into your happy-hour drink? Varieties of sotol are as abundant as varieties of tequila and mezcal. The terroir defines the flavors. When sotol is cultivated in the desert, that can give the spirit spicy, smoky, leathery notes. Sotol that’s found in the prairie, between the mountains and the desert, produces a spirit with more balance and more of a light, refreshing quality than its desert counterparts. Sotol grown in the mountains results in a spirit with minty notes, smelling of eucalyptus, that’s flexible enough to be blended smoothly into the simplest cocktails. The classifications of sotol range from plata (which is unaged and distilled straight into the bottle, most reminiscent of moonshine) to reposado (which has been aged from several months to a year) to añejo (which has been aged for longer than a year). We tapped sotol experts like Alejandro Dominguez, head bartender at Bar Calico, who curates its specialty flights for sotol tasting, and Darryl Chan, who embraces sotol on his menu of international cocktails, to give us some recommendations for which bottles to keep in your home.
Nocheluna Sotol
A great entry point into sotol, Nocheluna embraces the herbaceous and smoky flavors of sotol, yet it’s mild enough to mix into your favorite tropical cocktail. Lenny Kravtiz collaborated with Chihuahuan-born experts and distillers to bring Nocheluna to market.
Cardenxa Sotol de la Sierra
Dominguez keeps bottles of Cardenxa on the shelf at all times at Bar Calico. “Cardenxe offers three distinct expressions of sotol that highlight the three regions that sotol comes from: the desert, the mountains, and the prairies,” he says. “Its versatility allows our guests to taste how different terroirs affect the taste and smell of this unique spirit.”
Los Magos Sotol
Los Magos is the perfect desert sotol to transport you to the warm, earthy climate of northern Mexico. It blends lighter notes of herbs with hints of honey and spices to create an essential sotol experience.
Flor del Desierto Sotol Blanco
If you’re craving a rich and intense sotol experience, Flor del Desierto is the right bottle for you. This selection has strong peppery and smoky top notes and an earthy, leathery finish. Perfect for enjoying neat to get an undiluted sotol tasting.
Sotol Por Siempre
Produced by six generations of the Jacquez family of sotol distillers, Sotol Por Siempre reflects those decades of dedication to their product. Sotol Por Siempre boasts a rich minerality, intensified by notes of bell pepper, smokiness, and even white peach.
Make Sotol a Staple in Your Favorite Cocktail
It’s simpler than you’d think to slip sotol into your favorite nightcap. The right sotol can be blended seamlessly into a beloved cocktail recipe or be the star of a new drink you can experiment with. Below are surprising and delicious ways to incorporate sotol into your bar cart at home.
Chihuahuan Martini
“Bar Calico’s Chihuahuan Martini is a great choice, since martini cocktails always highlight the base spirit by only slightly adding collaborative flavors into them,” says Dominguez. “In this case, the Cardenxe Sotol de la Sierra is overall vegetal, crisp, and very eucalyptus-like on the nose, and so the aloe vera and triple sec liqueurs add cucumber and citrusy notes while giving the drink a bit of body for a delicious mouthfeel.”
2 oz Cardenxe Sotol de la Sierra
1 oz Chareau and Combier triple sec, stirred together
Orange peel for garnish
Add all ingredients, except garnish, into a mixing glass with ice. Stir with ice and strain into a chilled coupe.
Margarita
It’s a refreshing twist to take your favorite margarita recipe and substitute sotol for the tequila. “This allows people to understand how sotol interacts with other ingredients in a cocktail most people are familiar with,” Dominguez says.
2 oz sotol
3/4 oz lime juice, freshly squeezed
3/4 oz triple sec
Lime wheel and salted rim for garnish
Add all ingredients into a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled glass rimmed with salt (optional).
Mizu Fresca
Valedor, Chicago’s sotol haven, offers up the Mizu Fresca. The notoriously crushable cucumber margarita’s grown-up brother, this drink is fresh and plant-forward, designed to taste like you’re taking a bite straight out of a crisp cucumber. It uses sotol instead of tequila, which lends a bright grassiness to the pour. Aloe liqueur and fresh cucumber juice drive this theme home, though a touch of yuzu juice and agave syrup (of course) offset the earthiness just a bit. The team at Valedor says people often down five or six of these strong but sneaky drinks without blinking an eye.
2 oz Los Magos sotol
1/2 oz fresh cucumber juice
1/2 oz agave syrup
1/2 oz yuzu juice
1/4 oz Chareau aloe liqueur
Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled glass with crushed ice.
