Most mezcal brands put their name on the label. Melate puts the producer's name there instead. That single decision tells you everything about what this project is and why it matters.
Melate is a small-production mezcal brand built entirely around transparency and traceability. Rather than sourcing spirits and smoothing them into a house style, Melate works directly with individual Oaxacan maestros — recording who made the mezcal, where, from what plant, using what method — and then gets out of the way. The result is a lineup where every bottle is essentially a portrait of one person's craft at one specific moment in time.
Eutiquio works in the Sierra Sur region of Oaxaca, where tradition isn't a marketing angle — it's just how things are done. His Zapote expression comes from a cultivated agave that takes years to reach maturity, cooked in earthen pits, fermented in open-air wooden vats, and distilled in clay pot stills. The clay distillation is significant: it's a slower, more temperamental process that strips away nothing. What you get in the glass reflects the land, the plant, and Eutiquio's hands directly. At $55, this is a serious mezcal at a price that still makes sense.
Papalometl is a wild agave, and Noel's approach respects that wildness entirely. This 375mL bottling captures a single production — meaning once it's gone, that exact expression doesn't exist again. Noel's mezcal has the kind of depth you only get from wild plants that have spent decades drawing character from the soil around them. The half-bottle format isn't a gimmick; it's an honest acknowledgment that mezcal this specific and this finite deserves to be shared slowly, with attention. At $60 for 375mL, you're paying for irreplaceability.
Arroqueno is one of the most respected agave varieties in Oaxaca — large, slow-growing, and capable of extraordinary complexity. This bottling from Semei takes it a step further: it's a 2014 production, meaning you're drinking a decade-old mezcal with all the development that implies. Wild Arroqueno can take fifteen to twenty-five years to mature before harvest. Add ten years of bottle age and you're holding something genuinely rare. At $65 for 375mL, this isn't an impulse buy — it's a deliberate one.
We're selective about the mezcal we bring into the shop. The category has grown fast, and with that growth has come a lot of noise — brands leaning on rustic aesthetics without doing the actual work of producer relationships and honest sourcing.
Melate does the work. Every bottle traces back to a named person, a specific place, and a documented production. That's not common, and it matters — both for the people making the mezcal and for the people drinking it. When you know who made something and how, you drink differently. More deliberately. With more appreciation for what you're holding.
That's the kind of drinking we're interested in encouraging at Off Premise.
Melate also embodies something we believe deeply: that the best spirits in the world aren't built in boardrooms. They're built by individuals with generational knowledge, working in specific places, with plants that took decades to grow. Buying these bottles is a direct line to that reality.
We carry the Melate Zapote by Eutiquio Rios Hernandez ($55), the Papalometl by Noel Negrellos Ortega in 375mL ($60), and the 2014 Arroqueno by Semei in 375mL ($65). Stop into the shop at 1128 W Armitage Ave in Lincoln Park, or order online for pickup. These are finite productions — when they're gone, they're gone.
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