Connoisseurs once dismissed mescal as a lowbrow Mexican hooch. Grizzled bandidos were famous for swallowing the traditional drowned worm at the bottom of each bottle. The worm has turned. In Berkeley, Calif., 31-year-old lawyer Bob Dorsey likes to pour a dram from his $40 bottle of mescal after dinner into a snifter, not a shot glass. He swirls the mescal in his mouth, where the spirit reveals—he says—flavors that run from smoky to herbal to a hint of fruit and pepper during the long final. "It's as complex as any of the best single-malt Scotches I've had," says Dorsey, "and it's a lot more exotic."
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