La Mezca will offer more than 20 artisanal mezcals and agave spirits from across Mexico in Mueller.
Provided by Frida Molina.
The Vázquez sisters — best known for building Veracruz All Natural into one of Austin’s most recognizable taco brands — will open the mezcalería, La Mezca, on Wednesday in the Mueller neighborhood at 1905 Aldrich St., Suite 125-B. The opening marks the sisters’ first spirit-focused venture after seven locations of Veracruz All Natural, plus the restaurant Veracruz Fonda & Bar. La Mezca will celebrate small-batch agave spirits and the generations of artisanal mezcaleros who craft them.
Austin has seen tequila turned trend and mezcal often flattened into a smoky curiosity. What the Vázquez sisters are attempting is something else entirely: an introduction not just to a drink, but to a culture. With La Mezca, they want to show that mezcal is never one thing, never one region or one flavor, but many.
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‘Mezcal is not just mezcal’
La Mezca will also offer spirits in cocktails.
Provided by Frida Molina.
La Mezca sits beside Veracruz Fonda & Bar, the restaurant that brought the family’s cooking to Mueller. The timing feels inevitable. After years of visiting Mexico City and Oaxaca, watching the slow work of maestros — mezcaleros and mezcaleras, tasting spirits pressed from agave hearts that take decades to grow — the sisters found themselves with the rarest of commodities in Austin: an empty space, next door.
A mezcal cocktail at La Mezca, the Austin bar led by the Vazquez sisters to highlight Mexican spirits and flavors.
Provided by La Mezca
The bar will feature more than 20 artisanal mezcals and ancestral agave spirits from family producers across Oaxaca, Guerrero, Durango and San Luis Potosí — many from fourth-generation mezcaleros using techniques unchanged for centuries. The team plans to guide guests through the spirits’ stories, illustrating the differences between tequila and mezcal, the regional variations and the diverse agave varieties. La Mezca will also offer cocktails featuring Mexican mezcals, tequila, rum and gin, rotating seasonally.
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“Mezcal is not just mezcal,” Sebastian Coja, the bar manager at La Mezca said. “You can have the same type of agave from Oaxaca, but from two different towns, and it will taste completely different. Because of the terroir. Because of the maestro. That’s what we want to show people.”
The sisters plan to invite mezcaleros to speak, to lead tastings, to show the difference between tepeztate and espadín, between bottles distilled by a father or, just as often, by a daughter.
There is, too, the matter of honoring the maestros. Their names appear on bottles, their stories folded into the liquid itself. “It’s not just the juice,” Coja said “It’s also the history behind each bottle.”
La Mezca will pair spirits with small tacos.
Provided by Frida Molina.
Sip, savor, learn: La Mezca promises to reintroduce mezcal to Austinites
The education will be tempered by food.
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“We really want to pair the botanas with the bottles,” Reyna Vázquez said. “Rotate flavors depending on what’s behind the bar.”
Unlike the bright, pastel-colored Veracruz Fonda, La Mezca leans into a sense of mystery. The menu features small tacos on yellow corn tortillas — barbacoa one night, mushrooms or fish another — each crafted to complement a new pour. House-made salsas bring unexpected flavors, from matcha and peanut to chile verde. Menu highlights include taquitos de la calle, like carnitas de hongos with cilantro, onion and habanero popcorn salsa, and pescado al citrus piquín, served with crispy potato strips.
The decoration inside La Mezca borrows from the Mexican tradition of Dia de los Muertos.
Provided by Frida Molina.
The décor reflects the same careful intention as the menu. The sisters designed the space themselves — no decorators, no consultants — drawing inspiration from Día de los Muertos altars with candles, marigold tones, incense and smoke. Everything is handmade, echoing the artisanal spirits they serve. It is, as Reyna puts it, “a new chapter.” Their family’s restaurants have always centered on food; La Mezca, for the first time, centers on drink, though the line between the two blurs.
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When asked what they hope people will take away from their first visit, the sisters answer without hesitation: knowledge, respect, and joy. They want people to know that Mexico is more than tequila; that bacanora, raicilla, sotol and even Mexican whiskey belong to the same lineage. They want mezcal to be fun again. They want you to sit down, sip slowly, and remember that some things are meant to last.
La Mezca will be open Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays from 5 p.m. to midnight, and Fridays and Saturdays from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Mondays and Tuesdays will be reserved for private events, master classes and visits from small-batch producers.