The Etymology of Mezcal
Mezcal is a word built from two Nahuatl roots: metl, the maguey or agave plant, and ixcalli, meaning cooked or baked — together mexcalli, the cooked agave hearts that form the basis of the spirit. Indigenous Mesoamerican peoples had been fermenting agave sap into pulque for thousands of years before Spanish contact, but distillation arrived only with the colonisers in the 16th century, who applied their copper stills to roasted agave to produce the clear, smoky spirit now called mezcal. The word entered Mexican Spanish almost immediately and English in 1828, when American writers began describing Mexican drinking culture. Tequila, often confused with mezcal in popular usage, is technically a regional subtype: a denomination-of-origin product made only from blue agave (Agave tequilana) in specific regions of Jalisco. The famous worm in mezcal bottles is a 20th-century marketing gimmick, not a traditional feature.