Mezcal

When I first came to Mexico I drank a lot of tequila but somewhere along the line I lost my taste for it. About ten years ago there was a shortage of agave, the plant from which tequila is made. Some say that since then, tequila makers have used immature plants and speeded up the distilling process, so their product isn’t as flavorful as it used to be.

However, I learned to like mezcal. It is also made from agave, but rather than steamed, like tequila, it’s roasted in a pit in the earth, which gives it a smoky flavor. As one mezcal importer – I’ll get back to him in a minute – said to me, “What would you rather eat, a boiled potato or a roasted potato?”

The photo above is of a wonderful mezcal called Dioseño, so-called because it comes from a tiny town in the state of Durango called Nombre de Dios (God’s Name). I have actually been through that town and, apart from its mezcal, a more fitting name might be Godforsaken.

Dioseño, and other wonderful small-batch mezcals, are sold in Mexico City by a fellow named Cornelio Pérez. He has frequent tastings at bars and restaurants in the city. If you want to get on his mailing list, write to him at mezcalestiocorne@prodigy.net.mx. Feel free to mention my name.

Mezcal became hip among youths in Mexico City a few years ago, when a bar specializing in that drink called La Botica opened. There are now several branches of La Botica around town, and even one in Madrid. Click here to go to its web site.

But if you become a mezcal convert, this guy is your daddy. For the past fifteen years, Ron Cooper has been going to remote villages in Oaxaca, where the best mezcal is produced, and importing it to various countries, including the U.S. (He is the one who made the potato analogy.) His stuff is expensive but absolutely incredible -- as fine as any whiskey or cognac you can buy. Click here to find out more about it and where you can get it.

Soul queen

Hard luck is, if not  a constant, a melody line in the story of Irma Thomas. By the time she was 19, she'd been married twice and had four children. She had some early success as a singer -- one of her first songs, "You Can Have My Husband, But Please Don't Mess With My Man," made the Billboard R&B charts. But several of her greatest songs were later recorded by others who had monster hits with them. For instance, does anyone recognize this number? Or for soul aficionados, what about this one, later recorded by Otis Redding under another title? In 2005, she lost her night club due to Hurricane Katrina.

Still, it's not all bad news. Her post-Katrina album, After the Rain, won a Grammy in 2006. Known as the Soul Queen of New Orleans, she has always been a heroine in her home town, where her concerts (like this one she performed last Wednesday in Lafayette Square) are packed. Her music has been favored by filmmakers, and her songs have been featured recently in Why Did I Get Married Too?, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Secret Life of Bees and Butterfly On a Wheel. (And perhaps most memorably in this scene from Down by Law.) The other day, when she sang her most famous tune, "It's Raining," it brought tears to many an eye. I wished she'd sang "While the City Sleeps," one of my favorite adultery songs, written for her by Randy Newman in the early 1960s. You can find it in her greatest hits collection.

Punk buildings

This is one of my favorite edifices in the Colonia Roma, across from one of its pocket-sized parks. It is most likely from the late 19th century and was badly damaged in the 1985 earthquake -- and never repaired. If you look at it head-on, it's crooked, and even appears as if it might fall down if you blew on it.

Another abandoned building in the Roma. This one is on Calle Álvaro Obregón almost at the corner of Insurgentes. Oddly, it is next door to another that is its twin, except that it is in renovated and in working order.

Ay Chihuahua

Poor maligned Chihuahua. It's getting a very bad rap these days.

Supposedly it is the state with the worst drug-related violence in all of Mexico. Home to Ciudad Juarez, homicide capital of the world. Makes Baghdad look like Kansas.

Had to cool my heels for a couple of days in the capital city, Chihuahua, recently. I've been in worse places. They were very nice to me at the bar pictured above, but charged me double for my drinks. In a location with such a violent reputation I wasn't going to argue about it. I guess if you walk into a place called Bar Turista you get what you deserve.

Impressions: The cab driver who didn't want to take me to the hotel I asked for because he wouldn't earn a commission there. The French hotel manager at the local outpost of a mid-price international chain, who seemed to go out of his way to tell me how happy he was to be working in Chihuahua.

The lawyer in the cantina who insisted in speaking some form of English to me that I couldn't quite understand. To be diplomatic, I told him that I wanted to practice my Spanish. He ignored me and kept speaking "English." The Chinese restaurant where I saw the boxing match on TV.

City of statues and mannequins.

I saw families and old ladies around town. They always makes me feel safe. Two days was enough, though.

Santa María and Jesús

The gazebo in this photo was Mexico's contribution to the 1884 World's Fair, held in New Orleans. Given its Moorish design, it was known as the "Mexican Alhambra Palace." After the fair, the cast-iron structure was disassembled, brought back to Mexico City in pieces, and rebuilt in the Alameda Central. From its perch lottery winners were announced. Around 1910, it was replaced by the Monument to Benito Juárez (now on Avenida Juárez) and moved to the Alameda of a neighborhood called Santa María la Ribera.

Santa María la Ribera is one of my favorite areas of the city. It has had a bad rep since the 1840s, when a citizen council complained to federal authorities of thugs who roamed the area. Today, it's a traditional neighborhood, full of cantinas, modest restaurants and snack shops, that is in the process of gentrification. You can tell it's on the rise due to the proliferation of internet cafes, gyms, coffee houses and other businesses that tend to be patronized by the middle class. My friend Jesús Chairez (who has several blogs and websites about Mexico City) lucked out when he found an incredible apartment with this balcony that overlooks the Alameda. Everyone's luck runs out, though. He says his landlady is selling the building.