Anyone can pour a shot. Mexico lets you walk the field it came from.
Which Guadalajara day actually reaches the agave rows instead of a gift shop. What a clay-pot palenque tasting costs in Oaxaca. Whether the train out to Tequila earns its ticket, and who is driving back. Reviews of every tequila and mezcal experience you can book.
Four agave days worth building a trip around.
The field, the palenque, the taco crawl and the quiet tasting bar. What each costs and what the people who booked it came back saying.
01The Jalisco dayFull Day Tour to Tequila and Amatitán with Fun and CultureOut through the agave to Amatitán and back, distillery visit and lunch included. The day the whole spirit makes sense.
02The Oaxaca dayHierve el Agua, Tule Tree, Mitla and Mezcal Distillery TourHierve el Agua, Mitla and a working palenque in one run. The mezcal stop is the part people talk about afterwards.
03The Vallarta eveningFood & Mixology Tour:Tequila,Tacos, Mezcal and Agave CocktailsTequila, mezcal, tacos and agave cocktails walked between five stops. Come hungry and let somebody else drive.
04The short oneCabo San Lucas Tequila Tasting ExperienceAn hour at a Cabo tasting bar, blanco through añejo, no minibus and no early start. The easiest yes on the list.
Jalisco, Oaxaca or the coast: three different drinks, three different days.
Tequila comes from one state and mezcal mostly from another, and the beach resorts sell a version of both between a cenote swim and lunch. Pick the one your trip is already near.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Full Day Tour to Tequila and Amatitán with Fun and Culture
Guadalajara and JaliscoBlue agave rows, the old haciendas, the train back.
Oaxaca for mezcalWood-fired pits, clay stills, small-batch pours.
The resort coastCenote swim, taco lunch, tasting in the afternoon.
Mexico CityMezcalerías, lucha libre nights, the Xochimilco barges.
All 162 agave days out in Mexico →
Every tequila trip starts from one of these six towns.
A distilling capital, a mezcal capital, two Pacific beach towns, a cape at the end of Baja and a Caribbean resort strip. The best agave day out in each.
Tequila is a town in Jalisco before it is a drink.
Two hours out of Guadalajara the ground turns blue-grey with agave and the road runs between distilleries that have been working the same fields for two centuries. Jimadores cut the piñas by hand, the ovens run all day, and the train back is part of the ticket.
A tasting flight is the cheapest way to learn what you actually like.
Blanco straight off the still, reposado out of oak, añejo after a year in barrel, and mezcal from somewhere else entirely. An hour with somebody who pours for a living settles it faster than a year of ordering badly.
The agave days more travellers book than any others.
Every tequila and mezcal review →The tours that carry the most travellers in Mexico, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Chichen Itza, Cenote & Valladolid Tour with Tequila and Lunch
Travel from Cancun, Riviera Maya, or Playa del Carmen to Chichen Itza with a bilingual guide such as Beto, Kevin, or Ramiro. Tour El Castillo, swim at Cenote Chichikan, eat a Mexican buffet, sample tequila, and spend 30 minutes in Valladolid.
From · $34
Read our review →
2
Cabo Beach Camel Ride, Mexican Buffet and Tequila Tasting
from $99
3
Early morning Chichen Itza Tour: Cenote and Tequila Tasting
from $26
4
4×4 ATV Adventure with Tequila Tasting and Mexican Buffet Lunch
from $75
5
Cancun ATV Jungle Adventure, Ziplines, Cenote and Tequila Tasting
from $49
6
Puerto Vallarta Best Zipline Canopy + Tequila and Speed Boat Ride
from $120
7
ATV Tour, Camel Ride, Tequila Tasting and Mexican Buffet Lunch
from $149
8
Cabo Migrino Beach and Desert ATV Tour plus Tequila Tasting
from $75
Mezcal is made in the open air, and Oaxaca lets you stand next to it.
Agave hearts roasted in a rock-lined pit, crushed under a stone wheel a horse drags, fermented in wood and run through a clay still. Most valley runs put a palenque and Hierve el Agua on the same afternoon.
Every Oaxaca day out →
What a tequila day in Mexico actually costs.
Every experience on the site grouped by price. Plenty of the best pours in the country come in under the price of a cocktail at home.
Tasting bars, walking tours, an hour of pours and the short runs out of town.
The full days: Jalisco distilleries, Oaxaca valley runs, taco-and-mixology crawls.
Private drivers, small-group hacienda days and the once-a-trip cellar tastings.
Three agave days that happen nowhere else on earth.
Spirits are distilled everywhere. A landscape of blue agave with a train running through it, a still made of clay, and a wrestling hall that serves mezcal are Mexican and nothing else.
The train out to Tequila
Two tourist trains run from Guadalajara into the agave country, one from Jose Cuervo and one from Herradura, and both make the point better than any tasting room can: for an hour the window is nothing but blue-grey rows planted on volcanic soil. They finish at a working distillery with lunch and a mariachi band, and the return leg is why nobody has to worry about driving.
- 1From Guadalajara: Tequila Town and Cantaritos El Guero★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 211 reviews
- 2Premium Tequila Route with professional tasting★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 139 reviews
- 3Tequila/Guachimontones Tour-cultural heritage route★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 136 reviews
Palenques and the petrified waterfall
The valley run east of Oaxaca strings together a Zapotec ruin, a two-thousand-year-old tree, a weaving village and the mineral terraces at Hierve el Agua that look like a waterfall frozen mid-fall. Between them sits a palenque where agave is roasted in a pit, crushed under a stone tahona and distilled in clay. The pours at the end are usually straight from the barrel.
- 1Hierve el Agua, Tule Tree, Mitla and Mezcal Distillery Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,094 reviews
- 2Explore Hierve el Agua, Mitla, Tule, Textile and Mezcal for a day★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,043 reviews
- 3From Oaxaca de Juarez: Hierve el Agua and Mezcal Distillery★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 615 reviews
Masks, tacos and a mezcal after
Arena Mexico on a Friday is loud, ridiculous and completely serious about itself, and the tours that take you build the night around it: tacos beforehand, beer through the bouts, a mezcal in a bar afterwards where somebody explains why it tastes of smoke. Nobody drives, which is the point of booking it rather than doing it yourself.
- 1Lucha Libre Tickets & Tacos & Beer & Mezcal – BEST NIGHT EVER!★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,077 reviews
- 2Lucha Libre Tour and Mezcal Tasting in Mexico City★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 519 reviews
- 3Authentic Lucha Libre Tour : Wrestling School, Tacos & Mezcal★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 162 reviews
Four agave days that will not wait for a walk-up.
Most of Mexico can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on train timetables, fight nights and small groups that sell out, and they are the ones people are disappointed to miss.
- 01José Cuervo Tequila Day Experience from GuadalajaraThe big Jalisco distillery days run to a set calendar with small groups, and the good dates are taken well before the week they fall in.
- 02Hierve el Agua, Tule Tree, Mitla and Mezcal Distillery TourThe valley run leaves Oaxaca early and comes back late, and the minibuses fill the day before in high season.
- 03Lucha Libre Tickets & Tacos & Beer & Mezcal – BEST NIGHT EVER!Fight nights are Friday and Sunday. Turn up on a Wednesday and the arena is dark.
- 04Xochimilco: Tequila tasting (unlimited) and cultural party on a boatThe barges go out in booked groups, and on weekends the canal is taken well in advance.
How many pours, who drives, and what the afternoon heat does to a tasting.
A distillery day is three or four measures before lunch, in Jalisco sun at 1,500 metres. The tours worth booking feed you, keep the pours small and put somebody else behind the wheel. Hotel pickup is the single line on a description that matters most.
By place — Jalisco, Oaxaca and the coasts
By kind of day — field, still, table or track
Guadalajara, Tequila, Oaxaca: the run that follows the spirit itself.
Tequila town
The fieldsThe newest tequila and mezcal reviews.
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