The Worst Thing I Tasted This Week

Sure, it’s easy to wax poetic about some ambrosial nectar one has tasted. The 30 year old dram from the ghost distillery, only a few precious drops left on the planet, filtered through the beak of a Dodo bird. The bottle of Spanish wine saved for decades, lovingly decanted at a momentous dinner, its instagram feed bathed in drool. The seven ingredient cocktail mixed by a celebrity bartender, its market ingredients procured at the end of shift, in the wee hours before dawn while the rest of the city sleeps, thanks to some farmer contact, who allowed a purchase before the stalls even open to the public. Who knew a ramp thistle shrubb could be so exquisite?

No.

Sometimes you taste something so completely, utterly, despicably awful you just have to share. The moment it passes your lips you want to punch something or someone. Your senses are not merely compromised by its flavor and aroma, they are startled, then offended. What did we do to deserve this?

So this will be the first of a Friday series. Consider it a public service. I am tasting these things so you don’t have to.

Here we go.

This week I give you - La Perla de Tzitzio mezcal, 100% agave. I don't know which varietal. All the information online is in Spanish, which I don't speak. And at the time I was too angry to jot down any notes.

From what I understand, this stuff is aged underground in clay pots. What else is in the pots with it is not mentioned. Are they chamber pots?

Aromas: blue cheese, sweat socks, rancid butter with a not so delicate but oddly grateful waft of nail polish remover. Have you ever stepped into an empty subway car and then realized your grave error too late before the doors close? Or stood too close to a Subway sandwich shop for that matter?

Flavors: Go on. I dare you. Get past the smell. Your palate is rewarded with microwave popcorn that bathed in that rancid butter and blue cheese. Speaking of subways, I’m guessing if you lick the pole, this is what it will taste like in liquid form, except its alcoholic content would immediately kill all the germs. Or they would run screaming anyway.

Conclusion: Really. Who does this? Why? Clearly some sort of local blood feud went too far, it is the only explanation.

Here's hoping what's in your glass is way better this weekend, everyone. Cheers!

-Amanda

Editor in Chief

Guinea Pig

P.S. Incidentally, I also tasted a vodka/whiskey hybrid from the Himilayas. But this was far worse.