San Miguel de Allende's Friday Mezcal Meetup

Best Mezcal, Best Friends, Best Venue and Best Part of My Week!

32 of us last Friday at Mezcal-Art. Couldn’t even fit the satellite tables in this shot.

I think it was sometime in 2016. I’d been living here in San Miguel de Allende for around two years, and it struck me that I was doing this gorgeous town wrong. Unlike many of my local friends who are retired, I still work from my home studio every day recording voiceovers. It’s true that I’d usually meet my girlfriend (now wife) Cecilia somewhere for dinner and drinks. But I thought it might be fun to expand my week—and my appreciation for this fun city.

I called my friend James and asked if he could meet me for a cigar and mezcal at a local place in centro. He could. I told him I wanted to do it every Friday: knock off work early, head into San Miguel’s beautiful downtown, and (if others were also interested) find a place to smoke a stick and sip the good stuff while shooting the breeze. Cigars, mezcal and conversation; my kinda thing.

Mezcal Group Evolution

Night falls at Salon Oaxaca, San Miguel de Allende (Feb. 2017)

I had a bit of a time finding the right place. There was a local expat who had a workable bar, but I just didn’t find he was open when he said he’d be consistently. We bopped around here and there, finally settling on our first mainstay: Salon Oaxaca in centro at Insurgentes 44.

Tony, Carol and Geoff at Salon Oaxaca (Nov. 2017)

It was almost perfect. The owner, my friend Mario, was actually from Oaxaca and brought in good, artesanal mezcal regularly. He also had really great Oaxacan food—including one of the best tlayudas I’d ever had and even mole chicken wings! There was a nice roof terraza in a lovely, laid back part of town. As afternoon inched toward evening, the sun would hit the buildings in our view so beautifully, and we’d hear the church bells ringing while a local family’s clothes dried on the line across the street.

The tlayuda at Salon Oaxaca

The first challenge: while I was delighted to hit centro every week, some of our growing group of friends weren’t so much. As retirees, they got to soak up centro any day they liked; so no big deal. Plus parking can be a real bugger there sometimes. So we’d move around a bit in order to keep people from too much aggravation. Then Salon Oaxaca closed down. :-(

We hit Bastardo Restaurant and Beer Garden outside of town a bit. The food was (and still is) extraordinary—and sometimes they’d have one of our favorite local bands, The Mavericks, performing live. Music is a toughie: on the one hand it’s great to have some music in the air. On the other we’re there to talk, joke, tease, deliberate, etc., and if the music is too loud many of us are frustrated. So I’ve found that if we can at least be a bit distant from the musicians, it can work. We also appreciate it when the music starts a little later; so we at least have time to get most of our chatterboxing out.

Several times we’ve gone to Los Milagros Terraza. There’s a landmark location that serves super, family style Mexican food; same thing at this location—except they have a beautiful terraza that looks out over San Miguel de Allende.

Also we’d go out to Cien Fuegos Pizza & Comfort Food. Cecilia always loves the mussels and other excellent Italian offerings, but for me? I have a hard time passing up the Pizza Carbonara with bits of porkbelly!

At some point though, we found our Friday home.

Mezcal-Art

The group at Mezcal-Art (Fall 2021)

When I first walked into Mezcal-Art at Calzada de la Estación #59 right next to the immigration building, it appeared just to be a store. I met owner Alex, a Mexican whose father was from Oaxaca and mother from nearby Dolores Hidalgo. He poured me samples of some mezcales he had in stock; so I figured, what the hell, and retrieved a box of some of the bottles I had in the car. We sipped!

Mezcal-Art’s tlayuda! Multiple varieties, but I love the mushroom version!

Eventually I heard they’d opened a bar behind the building in a pretty good-sized courtyard. The first time or two I went it didn’t seem like much was going on, but not long after, Alex held a wonderful mezcal festival there with mezcaleros from all over Mexico. So we started popping by now and then. Then at some point we realized they took their food game up several notches! I now consider their tlayuda my all-time favorite! But they also have an amazing hamburger, costillas, tacos—and even a nice big mocajete. This is IN ADDITION to mezcal!

Mezcal-Art’s big, juicy burger and their mouthwatering costillas!

So let’s take a moment here… There was a new place in San Miguel de Allende with fantastic mezcal, amazing food, it was just outside of centro (with plenty of parking), and eventually Alex installed a nice, big roof over the dining portion of the courtyard to make sure we weren’t rained on, WHILE still featuring their outdoor environment so that non cigar smokers weren’t overwhelmed.

Mezcal-Art’s most recent culinary addition: the molcajete!

We’ve also become close pals with the owner’s dog Salmiana—named after our most common local agave! She’s lovely, but ever the opportunist, always wooing us with her big eyes and hoping for a little morsel to fall in her direction.

Ever present, Salmiana hopes our friend Arnie Thexton drops a little something!

Anyway, suffice it to say…as Alex and brother Rafa always tell us: “This is your home!”

Good sized group at Mezcal-Art (Fall 2021)

At least from my perspective, perhaps via unintentional but organic curation, we’ve accumulated quite a group here. Almost everyone is anywhere from a mezcal fan—to a full-on mezcal maniac. Just a minority of us puff on cigars. A pretty wide variety of folks from across the philosophical spectrum join us too. I suppose the only (unspoken) element that makes it all work, (aside from the mezcal,) is an appreciation that some will indeed have different opinions from others, and any differences need not be cause for condemnation.

Some of us, myself included, have artesanal mezcal brought in to San Miguel, and love to share it. Sometimes Mezcal-Art will get something new in that we love. Sometimes we get hold of something we end up not liking much. My exposure to this bunch has really taught me that people do indeed experience these mezcales differently from person to person. What to one is the penultimate agave expression—to another is undrinkable!

Here again, there’s room for differing tastes.

Maybe it’s this specific collection of folks or maybe it’s just what happens naturally as we age and figure out life; in any case it has seemed like my friends in San Miguel de Allende are some of the best I’ve ever had. And, as I often repeat, if you decide to come for a visit, or like the rapidly growing number of people seeking to relocate, you decide to check out moving here, make sure you contact me. I’d love to introduce you to these characters.

Salud!

I’ll leave you with one of the musical experiences we had at Mezcal-Art a few months back. Great band! Plus you get to see my beautiful wife dancing.