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Curious Texas: Where are the best places to drink tequila and mezcal in the Dallas area?

If it's quality tequila you seek, made from 100 percent agave, the best places to find it in Dallas-Fort Worth are those that have enthusiastically embraced mezcal.

Scott Bracken of Dallas asks: Where are the best Dallas-area places to drink mezcal and tequila?

His question is part of Curious Texas, a project from The Dallas Morning News that invites you to join in our reporting process. The idea is simple: You have questions, and our journalists are trained to track down answers.

Bracken says that while traveling in Mexico, he sat down for a tequila tasting session — and then learned about mezcal from friends who live in Monterrey. He'd like to learn more about both.

"I would love to sit down and go to a place that has different levels of mezcal and find someone who wouldn't mind walking me through what mezcal is and what the differences are between it and tequila," said Bracken, who works in database development in downtown Dallas.

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Well, Scott, you're in luck: It's a golden age for craft spirits, with a full-fledged craft-cocktail renaissance well underway, as I've noted while covering the scene in Dallas-Fort Worth over the last six years.

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Those of a certain age may harbor hazy memories of that one awful time tequila helped them beat a path to their floor, perhaps vowing never to make that nasty spirit's acquaintance again. But that was long ago, when bottles of mezcal doubled as worm aquariums and many tequilas were made with the bare legal minimum of agave.

In December 2015, my colleague Alfredo Corchado and I detailed how agave spirits are benefiting from the current craft-cocktail movement's foodie-like focus on quality, authenticity, exotic products and artisanship. Actually we are all benefiting, blessed as we are with the ever-growing supply of top-notch tequila, mezcal and other agave-related spirits.

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The center section of the bar at Mexican Sugar in Plano features many different types of...
The center section of the bar at Mexican Sugar in Plano features many different types of mezcal and tequila.(Vernon Bryant / Staff Photographer)

The U.S. drinks twice as much tequila as Mexico, and Texas is its second-largest market. In short: Tequila is easy to find here. Mezcal, its smokier ancestor, is less so — but that's changing, as I was pleased to note here, with most bars stocking at least a bottle of Del Maguey's Vida to keep up with the times.

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If it's quality tequila you seek, made from 100 percent agave, the best places to find it in Dallas-Fort Worth are those that have enthusiastically embraced mezcal, which is still largely an artisan spirit produced in relatively small batches. That's a phenomenon I got to experience firsthand during a visit to Oaxaca in 2016.

In Dallas, Las Almas Rotas, near Fair Park, has the city's largest mezcal selection; Mexican Sugar, at the Shops at Legacy in Plano, has the biggest stock in the 'burbs.

At either place you'll find not only the best of tequila, made from blue agave, but you'll also be able to sample mezcals made from a wide range of species, whether tobala, cenizo or madrecuixe, or maybe a little more exotic style like a turkey-fat-enhanced pechuga.

Bartenders Mauricio Garriegos and Daniel Zapata preach the mezcal gospel at Santos y...
Bartenders Mauricio Garriegos and Daniel Zapata preach the mezcal gospel at Santos y Pecadores, an agave spirits hideaway at Uptown's Bowen House.(Marc Ramirez / Barmoire.com)

You'll also find smaller but well-curated selections of mezcal and tequila at Santos y Pecadores, a hideaway mini-lounge ensconced in Uptown's Bowen House; at Jettison, at the Sylvan Thirty complex in north Oak Cliff; at Urban Taco in Uptown; and at Deep Ellum's Black Swan Saloon. Several of these spots also feature lesser-known Mexican spirits like agave-based raicilla and bacanora, as well as sotol, made from desert spoon, a distant agave relative. And there's Oaxacan rum, gin and whiskey, too.

Less focused on mezcal and the rarer spirits but still offering nice tequila selections are Jose, in Highland Park; Jalisco Norte, in Oak Lawn; Asador, in the Renaissance Hotel; and Meso Maya, with locations in Dallas and Fort Worth.

Mezcal, in particular, has a way of inspiring fervent enthusiasm -- so good luck to you as you begin your journey.

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