El Recuerdo Abocado Con Gusano Mezcal
Travel Distilled reviews El Recuerdo Abocado Con Gusano Mezcal from Oaxaca in Mexico, the name meaning that it has been enriched by using the agave worm.
I was surprised when this bottle arrived as it’s the first time I’ve seen a mezcal that wasn’t clear. Mezcals are usually drunk unaged (‘Joven’), giving them no time to pick up any colour from aging in a barrel. This, though, was a pale straw colour, almost like a white wine. So where does the colour come from?
Enter the Worm
The website makes no mention of artificial colouring, but does introduce that controversial topic of the so-called agave worm. It’s been well-reported that there has never been a long-standing tradition of putting a worm in a bottle of mezcal, which you’re supposed to eat when you finish the bottle. This was a marketing gimmick introduced by one company in the 1950s and it clearly worked so well that many people still associate mezcal with a worm, or sometimes a scorpion, in the bottle.
El Recuerdo Abocado Con Gusano Mezcal
The very name of this mezcal, Abacado Con Gusano, means ‘Enriched with Worm’, and they add that it’s for ‘for those who prefer the silky texture the agave worm adds to the Mezcal.’ I’ve never heard of a worm adding anything to a mezcal, neither texture nor taste, but presumably the implication is that the colour comes from the worms somehow.
El Recuerdo means something like ‘The Memory’, ‘The Keepsake’, ‘The Memento’, or ‘The Souvenir’, by the way. As well as the wormy version this Oaxaca distillery also makes a plain Joven with 100% Agave Espadin plants, which are cooked over river rocks using a mix of oak and pine woods.
Tasting El Recuerdo Abocado Con Gusano Mezcal
The distillers rather imaginatively call the colour, on their website: ‘bright straw yellow with gold sparkles’. I agree with the first part but I didn’t notice any golden sparkles.
On the nose there’s a punch of earthy agave, some peardrops/banana aromas, a bit of apple freshness, a subtle smokiness, and a honeyed sweetness. Tasting it you get the same, and it does make for a pleasant sipping mezcal. It also made a terrific mezcal and tonic, and this became my go-to cocktail for a few days, as it really brought out the flavours. It was definitely silky rather than too smoky, though how much of this was due to the worm, I wouldn’t like to say.
Buying El Recuerdo Abocado Con Gusano Mezcal
You can find out more, including stockists, on the El Recuerdo website. If you live in Manhattan or Los Angeles you can even get a 2-hour delivery. You can also buy this El Recuerdo Abocado Con Gusano Mezcal through Master of Malt. In the UK you can find it on Amazon.
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