La Medida Mezcal Tobasiche

La Medida Tobaziche is a joven mezcal from Oaxaca built on Tobaziche, a wild form of Agave karwinskii that locals sometimes also call Largo and that shares its family with madrecuixe, barril and cirial. La Medida gathers more than forty Oaxacan producers under Julian Vidal Gomez Rodriguez, who has spent four decades in mezcal and works in small batches with long-standing traditional methods.
Karwinskii agaves like Tobaziche read green and stony, and this bottling shows that clearly. Roasted agave leads, with sweet pineapple, a touch of caramel and honey and a lift of pepper, before the palate turns to roasted cedar, eucalyptus, red pepper and a saline green olive edge. Pit roasting underpins the smoke and earth, double distillation carries the herbal minerality, and the spirit is bottled unaged at 45% to keep the wild agave in front.