Mezcal Educational Excursions — Local services in Oaxaca

Not sure where to begin in expressing my appreciation for Randall Stockton and the Mezcal Educational Excursions! I first took a tour in Oaxaca 3 years ago during my first visit to Oaxaca and, unfortunately, Alvin and Randall were both booked so we chose a different company. It was great, or so we thought. The next year, I was fortunate enough to book Randall's tour and my MIND WAS BLOWN! If you don't ready anything else, just know that you are missing out if you do not book with Randall. But keep reading.

From the very first hello with Randall, he greets you with kindness and begins oozing passion and knowledge of Mezcal and the world around him. He has such an interesting past and present life and is no stranger to sharing stories that will have you feeling like you've known one another for a long time within just a few minutes in the car ride to your first stop. Above else, his knowledge of the chemistry, history, and everything Mezcal/agave spirits related will leave you so much more educated and culturally in tune with Mezcal after the tour.

His tour is completely off the beaten path and avoids the touristy trap places that unfortunately many other tours will take you to. He fosters real relationships with the families that own the palenques and they produce some of the best mezcal you've ever tasted in your life. He refers to all of the places you're going to as going to visit "friends" not producers. While at the palenques, you'll taste a ton of different mezcals that you will most likely never have an opportunity to taste otherwise, and especially not in the states. I had the immense honor of meeting Berta Vasquez and going inside of her house to drink mezcal in her living room this last trip! Hard to find those types of relationships anywhere else and they take time to foster!

He absolutely loves to talk mezcal and any questions you may have, he's interested and eager to answer. He's also open to taking you where you'd like to go, within reason.

I've taken Randall's tour the past two years and actually, this last year I planned my dates to Oaxaca around Randall's availability... he's that good!

Thanks so much, Randall and Alvin for the amazing work that you do and for building such a strong community...

We had such high hopes for this tour considering all the ratings were so positive. I do not know if those people were paid off or they were too drunk from Mezcal to notice or care but this tour was awful! I am not sure how the other tour guide was but the one we had was non engaging, rude, condescending, boring, and basically a thief. Alvin Starkman was more interested in the next tour group he had the next day that he was doing the planning on our time. He did not want to talk to us on the way to the first distillery, instead he was working on his itinerary for the next day on his phone.

The 1st distillery had every share one bowl. When the bowl was passed around they put the remainder of the Mezcal back in the jugs. I am pretty sure this was the reason why everyone in our party got sick. And DO NOT use the restrooms. Both stall had poop in them and it would be up to you to use the bucket of water to flush the toilet. The 2nd distillery was fine, much cleaner. Then off to lunch where we were basically told to pay for this guys lunch. I have to admit the lunch place was delicious. We went to 3 more locations that were sooooo unnecessary. One place had dog poop all over the place. But this was all fine compared to the tour guide. We could have laughed about it but Alvin had zero interest in engaging or a sense of humor. It was painful to listen to him.

We then got stuck in traffic on our way and was charged for it. This tour could have ended much much much sooner but since this guy was charging by the hour clearly he was just milking it. So our tour which should have cost $125 per person ended up being $165 per person and was ABSOLUTELY NOT worth it. Who charges for being stuck in traffic!! Alvin...

Very simply, you must go on this tour. If you only had 2 days in Oaxaca, I think Randall’s tour should be one of them (and I hope for your sake you have more!)

I booked a full day tour for a group of 11 people, almost all of whom including me knew next to nothing about Mezcal (and frankly not all of whom felt we could/should devote a whole day to it). Randall’s passion for Oaxaca, Mezcal and the Mezcaleros who make it was intoxicating though, and universally we all came away from the trip very thankful to have had the experience.

Why?

1)Randall has an encyclopedic knowledge and understanding of Mezcal, and was able to answer just about any obscure question we had for him in depth 2)The places you go to are the real deal — small families who are passionate about the art of Mezcal, who are at the forefront of innovating with it, and whose mezcals you often can’t even buy except by going on these tours. While even some smaller producers are better-known, Randall has dozens and dozens of these kinds of relationships that he’s built up over the years, which means he’s often the only way you could realistically visit some of these producers (and if you know a lot about Mezcal, he could very much customize it to what you want) 3)English is Randall’s native language — assuming you speak English better than Spanish, that just makes everything easier.

So all that said, if you’re in Oaxaca, I couldn’t recommend this enough! As for me, I’ll just have to wait for the next time I can...