Wild Rag Vodka

Wild Rag Vodka from South Texas makes three vodka including a cinnamon-flavored vodka and a vodka distilled from mesquite tree beans.

Who is Wild Rag?

Wild Rag Vodka is based in South Texas, where Master Distiller Royel Aguilar grew up in the small town of Sandia (population 379), about 120 miles south of San Antonio and not too far from the Gulf of Mexico. This is where he based his South Texas Distillery, where he makes Wild Rag Vodka.

What is a Wild Rag?

A wild rag is obviously a Texas thing, but not being from Texas I didn’t know that a wild rag is basically a kind of bandana that cowboys have been wearing since the 1800s. You wear it round your neck and can adapt it so it goes over your mouth to protect you from dust and sandstorms, over your head to protect you from the sun, and also to provide a little bit of warmth. I’m surprised you can’t buy Wild Rag wild rags on the Wild Rags website, though they do have a range of baseball caps in their store.

Wild Rag Vodka Master Distiller Royel Aguilar — Master Distiller Royel Aguilar

Wild Rag Vodkas

Wild Rag produces three different vodkas, which all sounded interesting and which I was keen to try.

Wild Rag Sandia Silver Vodka

This is obviously named for the little town of Sandia where the Master Distiller grew up, and is their basic straight vodka. It’s distilled from cane sugar, which is a bit unusual, and is quite low-alcohol at 35% ABV.

On the nose this is a mix of sweet from the sugar, and a bit medicinal. There’s a warmth and spiciness about it too. Tasting it, there’s a mix of sweet and sour, a little citrus and leather (not that I’ve ever tasted leather), but there was more alcohol in the taste than you’d expect from its 35% ABV. It’s not a vodka I would lay back and sip on, but would be fine for simple cocktails.

Mesquite beans used in Wild Rag Vodka — Mesquite Beans

Wild Rag Batch 27

Wild Rag Batch 27 is the vodka I was most interested in, as it’s distilled from mesquite beans. Where I live in Southern Arizona we’re surrounded by mesquite trees, whose beans have been harvested for generations by Native Americans and used in cooking. What would a mesquite-bean-based vodka taste like? This is the only one that’s bottled at the standard 40% ABV.

The answer is that it’s very much like the Sandia Silver. It has a sweetness on the nose, a little more potent from the stronger alcohol content. It’s not a bad vodka, just not one you would sip on, but there are better vodkas out there and I’ve no idea what it costs as you can’t find the price on their website, only where you can buy it.

Wild Rag Texas Torch

The Wild Rag Texas Torch is a cinnamon-flavored vodka and is again bottled at 35% ABV. This wasn’t to my taste as it was far too sweet for me but if you’re a Fireball fan you might like to give it a try.

Wild Rag Website

The Wild Rag Vodka website is very strange. It has lots of layout errors on it. Being a kind soul I wanted to contact them to point them out so they could correct them, but while there are links to their social media pages there’s no actual way to contact them. Also, the link to their Twitter page actually takes you to their Facebook page. I guess there’s some work needed here.