The Drunken Botanist

These grubs are added only as a marketing gimmick and are not a traditional part of the recipe. They are usually a sign of a cheap mezcal aimed at drinkers who don’t know better.

1897, a Scientific American reporter wrote that “mezcal is described as tasting like a mixture of gasoline, gin and electricity. Tequila is even worse, and is said to incite murder, riot and revolution.”

Mezcal is sometimes confused with mescaline, the psychoactive component of the peyote cactus Lophophora williamsii. In fact, the two are entirely unrelated, although peyote was sold in the nineteenth century as “muscale buttons,” leading to a linguistic misunderstanding that persists today.

agave is better known for what it is not than for what it is. Some people think it is a kind of cactus; in fact, it is a member of the botanical order Asparagales, making it more similar to asparagus and a few other unlikely relatives: the shade-loving garden ornamental hosta, the blue hyacinth bulb, and the spiky desert yucca.