<\/p>\n
From left, Terese O\u2019Malley, Melissa Beach and Alicia Dee toast while drinking mezcal at Odin in Oakland.<\/p>\n
Stephen Lam\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Odin\u2019s expansive menu book includes vintage bottles, including as far back as 2001.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stephen Lam\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Odin opened in Oakland, near Jack London Square, in 2022.<\/p>\n
Stephen Lam\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Alicia Dee enjoys a cocktail at Odin. The bar only serves five standard cocktails.<\/p>\n
Stephen Lam\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Owners Silvia\u00a0Hernandez, left, and husband Cory McCollow.<\/p>\n
Stephen Lam\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
If you start obsessing over agave, you\u2019ll hear about Odin. The Oakland bar is oft spoken of in a reverent whisper. It might be the best mezcal bar in the country right now. The depth of the bottle list at Odin, and its focus on vintages of agave spirits dating back decades, put it in rare company<\/a> \u2014 alongside The Cabinet in New York City, M\u00edrate in Los Angeles and the upstairs bar at Whisler\u2019s in Austin, Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n And it turns out I am obsessed with agave. It wasn\u2019t always this way; I\u2019ve spent the last 20 years, give or take, writing professionally about drinks: coffee<\/a>, wine<\/a>, cocktails<\/a>, mineral water<\/a>, tea<\/a>, nonalcoholic beer<\/a>, fancy restaurant sodas<\/a>. I was always awareof agave spirits\u00a0\u2014 tequila, of course, and also mezcal and its many variants\u00a0\u2014 but I had filed them away as the stuff of cocktails, like the legendary Oaxaca old fashioned created by Phil Ward at the original Death & Co. location in lower Manhattan in 2007.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a hoary wine clich\u00e9 about how \u201call roads lead to Burgundy.\u201d It\u2019s the belief that no matter what you\u2019re into \u2014 goofy orange wine or whatever \u2014 eventually, someone is going to pour you a glass of Premier Cru Burgundy and nuke your palate from space. This is sort of what happened to me with agave. The easiest way to explain it is that agave spirits are like cocktails unto themselves: They\u2019re so complex that you taste multiple overlapping things in a single sip, a profound intricacy and riotous multiplicity of flavors. But they\u2019re also like wine, in that they taste positively alive in the bottle.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n AnnaMarie Alves makes a cocktail at Odin.\u00a0<\/p>\n Stephen Lam\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n At the same time, the small production, artisan nature of mezcal and many agave subcategories, wherein batch sizes and idiosyncratic bottle releases can number in the mere dozens, scratches the same deep, extremely online itch for me as sneaker drops or whatever other totem of supposed scarcity and desirability that\u2019s come to define rarefied consumer appreciation in the 21st century.\u00a0<\/p>\n Spirits like scotch and bourbon acquire flavor and value from the years they spend in a barrel. For agave, it\u2019s the years that the plant\u00a0\u2014 technically a succulent, and taxonomically a member of the asparagus family\u00a0\u2014 spends in the ground, soaking up the sun and the soil and the nutrients, creating layers of flavor in the finished product. Agave spirits have deep roots in Mexico: wild-grown agave has been fermented and drunk across Mexico for thousands of years, and this tradition collided with Spanish copper stills and the distillation practices of enslaved Filipino workers beginning in the 16th century. Regional styles and techniques have iterated upon themselves now for generations, arriving at a modern milieu of mastery and flavor obsession you find across Mexican culture today, with master distillers preserving tradition while pushing boundaries of flavor, technique and attention to detail.<\/p>\n San Francisco Chronicle Logo<\/p>\n Make us a Preferred Source to get more of our news when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Odin, which describes itself as a \u201cmezcaler\u00eda con prop\u00f3sito\u201d (\u201ca mezcal bar with purpose\u201d), is dedicated to the breadth and depth of agave spirits from across Mexico, including tequila, mezcal, sotol, raicilla, bacanora\u00a0and unclassified \u201cdestilados de agave\u201d that originate in more than a dozen states, from Sonora in the north to Oaxaca, the beating heart of Mexico\u2019s distillation tradition.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Odin\u2019s vast agave collection includes rare bottles and older vintages that are rarely seen in the U.S.<\/p>\n Stephen Lam\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n More than 450 individual bottles of agave are available as pours here, which makes Odin one of the most stocked bars in America in terms of agave-by-the-glass. They\u2019re cataloged in the pages of a list<\/a> that feels more like a wine book from San Francisco\u2019s Michelin-starred Saison or Lazy Bear than any other spirits menu I could reference. While anyone can buy a lot of bottles, not anyone can build a collection like the one that Odin\u2019s owners, Silvia Hernandez and husband Cory McCollow, have over the past 15 years. (The pair also ran the Mexican restaurant\u00a0Nido, which they closed during the pandemic and later turned into Odin, and operate Nido\u2019s Backyard nearby.) The mezcal specialist and educator Hugo Gonzalez helped develop the program, which is now overseen by Eric Martin, part of the team at Odin since 2024. \u201cWe try to approach things like we\u2019re one of those spots with a huge wine collection,\u201d Martin said, \u201cexcept here everything is by the glass.\u201d<\/p>\n Much of what\u2019s in that mezcal book includes vintage bottles, including as far back as 2001. While scotch fiends have long sought out 20-year-old expressions and bourbon fans are known for hunting down dusty bottles, it\u2019s far less common to have access to older issuances of agave\u00a0\u2014 which now outsells whiskey, rum and vodka in the United States. Local stores like San Francisco Tequila Shop<\/a> in Bernal Heights and Prizefighter<\/a> in Emeryville are at the forefront of this boom, but Odin is pouring back vintage stuff you can\u2019t buy anywhere; McCollow estimates up to 75% of the bar\u2019s collection is unavailable for retail purchase. Earlier I mentioned the wine lists at Saison or Lazy Bear, but for agave lovers this place is more like drinking at La Tour d\u2019Argent in Paris, where historic vintage bottles are opened each night.\u00a0<\/p>\n McCollow looks\u00a0for a bottle of mezcal on the back bar. He\u00a0estimates up to 75% of Odin\u2019s collection is unavailable for retail purchase.<\/p>\n Stephen Lam\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n There are no major corporate spirits at Odin \u2014 no Casamigos or Jose Cuervo or Patr\u00f3n or\u00a0Clase Azul. The bar\u2019s \u201cwell\u201d mezcal is an exclusive series of collaboration batches with Maestros del Mezcal, a collective of mezcal producers. Similarly, the well tequila on my last visit was G4, a cultishly revered label from Felipe Camarena, a maestro mezcalaro (the term of respect given to distinguished tequila and mezcal producers). Most bars keep it on the top shelf and trumpet such collaboration bottles as scarce and special. Nearly every pour on Odin\u2019s list, from vintage unobtanium to well drinks and new releases, costs between $10 and $20 an ounce, served neat.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Toward\u00a0the front of the menu there\u2019s a section for \u201cMezcales Raros\u201d\u00a0\u2014 what Odin\u2019s team is particularly excited about at the moment, alongside offerings from deep within the treasure cave of the bar\u2019s list. Here\u2019s where you\u2019ll find, for example, a 2017 \u201cEnsamble\u201d from Candido Garcia Cruz in Oaxaca, bottled by Neta, and composed of five distinct agave varieties aged in the bottle. It is something like a demented Bloody Mary, with flavors of cooked tomato, bright green tomatillo and Skittles candy. This blended style is one of my favorite ways to drink agave, because it reminds me of the soft touch and craft you find among winemakers combining distinct grape varietals in the Rhone Valley, or the California \u201cMeritage\u201d blend based on Bordeaux.<\/p>\n Another selection from this section stopped me dead: a 2014 bottle of Cenizo, an uncommon variety of agave that grows best at high altitudes in the state of Durango, distilled by a mezcalero named Melesio Soto Morales and bottled by Mezcaloteca, an independent label from a revered mezcal tasting room in Oaxaca City. There\u2019s a pronounced sweetness to it \u2014 orgeat, goat\u2019s milk caramel and pecan pie\u00a0\u2014 offset by shocks of caper brine acidity and the visceral satisfaction of a shiver-inducing, perfectly balanced dirty martini, with an additional layer of complexity from a decade of aging in the bottle. There is nowhere else in America you can drink this.\u00a0<\/p>\n From left, Cuish Penca Larga, Mezonte Raicilla Japo and NETA Ensamble (Madrecuixe, Espad\u00edn, Jabal\u00ed) at Odin.<\/p>\n Stephen Lam\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n Agave neophytes at Odin might start with something like the Cuish Penca Larga ($15), distilled by Hermogenes Vazquez in San Luis Amatl\u00e1n, Oaxaca, which tastes like the first bite of spring strawberries with a mineral water back; or the Mezonte Raicilla Japo ($15), which offers the unmistakable lactic coating quality of yogurt, alongside flavors of grapefruit soda, candied lemon and oolong tea. I gravitated immediately toward\u00a0the Pal\u2019alma Sonora Bovicornuta ($15), distilled by Ram\u00f3n Almada in the border state of Sonora. It is fermented in rawhide, lending an additional layer of complexity and a distinct note of grass-fed beef funk. I followed it with a pour from Macurichos, whose maestro mezcalero, Gonzalo Martinez Sernas, has earned a serious following as one of the top young distillers in Mexico today. Odin has several of his bottles, including the Cirial ($15), which is an obscure agave variety that tastes like pie crust, peach Yoplait with fruit at the bottom, and fresh, crisp jicama.\u00a0<\/p>\n Drinking agave spirits neat can be intimidating at first, which is one reason cocktails loom so large in the American agave space; they\u2019re still the most common way agave spirits are consumed here. \u201cWhen we set out to open, I wanted no cocktail menu at all,\u201d McCollow said. It was Hernandez who convinced him otherwise. \u201cWe can\u2019t have a bar this nice without cocktails,\u201d she told him.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n More than 450 bottles of agave are available at Odin.<\/p>\n Stephen Lam\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n A standard set of five cocktails are on permanent rotation here, including a paloma, a margarita, a very good mezcal negroni, and a drink called La Maxima, served with tequila, Mexican orange liqueur, honey and lime. There\u2019s no vodka behind the bar but that is meant to promote the vast set of flavors inherent to agave. No matter what you like to drink, there is probably an agave version of it at Odin.\u00a0<\/p>\n They call Odin \u201ca mezcal bar with purpose\u201d for many reasons, I think. On the front cover of the tome-like bar book is a photo of Hernandez\u2019s mother in Nayarit, sticking her tongue out in your general direction. It suggests a duality: playfulness and revelry, tradition and experimentation, old and new ways working in tandem. An agave newbie getting that switch flipped for the first time, a\u00a0mezcal skeptic finding their head turned, a serious collector moved to tears by the depth of the collection, or just a drinker in search of a good time \u2014 purpose is what you make of it at Odin. The whispers are true. This bar is extraordinary on a national level, and the experience you\u2019ll have is only possible here.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From left, Terese O\u2019Malley, Melissa Beach and Alicia Dee toast while drinking mezcal at Odin in Oakland. 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