What started as a tasting club among friends has blossomed into one of the best places in Texas to enjoy and appreciate agave spirits. As a self-described “shrine” to the distillates of Mexico, owners Leigh and Shad Kvetko and Taylor Samuels have baked a deep sense of reverence for the category into the programming since opening the mezcalería-style bar in 2017. Every bottle on the backbar has a story—you won’t find anything industrial or mass-produced on the shelves. Staff training is always open to other local industry members to spread knowledge beyond the cantina doors. And while that all sounds quite serious, with arms-open neighborhood cantina vibes, it’s also a refreshingly unpretentious space where revelry abounds.

This beautifully minimalist bar and restaurant opened in 2015 under the purview of Lane Harlan, her husband, Matthew Pierce, and chef Carlos Raba with a focus on Sinaloan cuisine and agave spirits. Together with bar director Dre Levon, the team has carefully curated a one-of-a-kind collection of spirits via a hands-on approach, traveling to Mexico often to give staff the opportunity to understand the spirit within its cultural context. The tasting-bar ticket is the one you want to score—every quarter, Clavel sends 10 percent of the proceeds to a profit-sharing program directly benefiting producers in Mexico—but don’t miss the house-fermented tepache or the Glass Negroni, a sotol-based variation that has been aged for over 3,000 days.

The Cabinet is a veritable temple to agave spirits, with almost 900 different expressions in house, sourced from multiple Mexican states, including some rare and obscure jewels collected by bar owner Greg Boehm. It is one of the, if not the, most sizable collections in the country. Perhaps more importantly, Boehm has assembled a crack team of knowledgeable agave enthusiasts as staff members, including head bartender Diego Livera (formerly of Dead Rabbit, Blacktail and The Aviary) and writer and agave educator Noah Arenstein, who lead the educational side of things. By bringing in some of the industry’s top producers and experts to lead tastings and classes, the crew is deepening New York’s understanding of and appreciation for the spirit by the ounce.

Odin is a stylish, contemporary, mezcalería-style bar in Oakland with an intensely thoughtful spirits list assembled by mezcal specialist and educator Hugo González. Originally from Xochimilco in Mexico City—and also currently a brand ambassador for mezcal collective Maestros del Mezcal—González’s knowledge of and respect for the spirit runs deep. The robust spirits menu features bottles from “responsible agave farmers and well-intentioned brands,” and includes detailed educational information such as process information, maps showing denominations of origin, and agave species. The bar also offers a mezcal club, featuring interesting and rare bottles, and hosts regular educational meet-and-greet tastings with some of the industry’s best and brightest producers.

Bourbon country might be the last place you’d expect to find a good agave bar, but with Pretty Decent, owner John Douglass has lit a notable spark right in the heart of Louisville. The tight spirits list puts a focus on brands that are family- or community-owned and imported by suppliers who treat their producer partners fairly, says Douglass, who has played a pivotal role in bringing more than 20 agave brands to Kentucky that were not previously available in the state. Almost the entire staff has spent time on the ground in Mexico to learn about the spirits straight from the source; the bar offers regular Mezcal 101 classes; and in early 2024, Douglass started inviting guests and friends to join these educational trips to further share knowledge with the community.

A great study in how the size of one’s backbar doesn’t necessarily indicate the quality of the program, the collection at Crisol—the nighttime bar companion to daytime coffee bar Exo Roast in Tucson’s Barrio Libre—is modest, but its quality is mighty. As is the case with many other notable agave bars in Arizona, the bar puts an extra spotlight on traditionally made distillates that are made in neighboring states in northern Mexico, so guests get a real-time taste of the terroir of the region. Educational tastings take place every Thursday night, and the bar also serves as one of the primary event hubs for the annual Agave Heritage Festival, inviting industry luminaries to lead discussions and presentations for guests.

Located in the South Grand neighborhood of St. Louis, Monstera (formerly Grand Spirits Bottle Shop) has evolved into an agave oasis since opening in 2021. Owner Michael Fricker, who has spent significant time in Oaxaca, has procured a collection for the bar that centers on small-batch, producer-owned expressions that communicate a distinct sense of terroir. Every staff member gets cultural-sensitivity training in addition to spending a week in Oaxaca visiting producers to learn directly from the source. Educational programming for the public puts a spotlight on the topics of terroir and regionality within the category. Fricker is set to open a mezcalería, called Malcriado, in Oaxaca City next year with partners Andres Cruz and Carlos Martinez (both originally from Oaxaca).

From husband and wife Felipe Donnelly and Tamy Rofe, both from Mexico City, Colonia Verde is a love letter to natural wine and mezcal, situated in a light-filled space in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. There, beverage director Noah Manskar has stocked a range of about 130 distillates from across Mexico, prioritizing brands owned by distillers. He has also taken a unique approach to the menu design, listing the producer name first and brand name last (in parentheses, to boot), to remind guests, as the menu reads, of “the hands, minds, and hearts responsible for bringing you what’s in your glass.”

This stylish West Loop restaurant and bar pays homage to José Luis Barajas’ Mexican roots. The chef and owner moved to the U.S. in 1988 and worked in family restaurants in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood before opening La Josie in the heart of Restaurant Row in 2017. The agave bible features more than 100 spirits—both certified and not—organized by region and agave variety. With educational material baked into the menu, the range of options showcases the diversity of the category and offers “a window into the heart and soul of a people and a living expression of hundreds of years of tradition.” The bar also hosts master class events from distillers and brand owners to help expand the community education.

Southern California is awash in great agave bars, but at Mírate in Los Angeles, beverage director Max Reis has done a handful of unique things in the pursuit of a more ethical backbar. In addition to eschewing industrially produced brands, due to his extensive on-the-ground network cultivated over years of traveling to Mexico, Reis often sources product directly from producers, buying what they have available at the time instead of asking them to change practices or production volumes just for the bar. This typically sparks opportunities to have educational conversations with guests, as does the bar’s “nogave” syrup, which Reis created as a more sustainable alternative to agave syrup for the cocktail program.