TEQUILA & MEZCAL TOURS · MEXICO
Straight from the agave fields.
Distillery days in the blue-agave country of Jalisco, mezcal palenques in Oaxaca, cantina nights in Mexico City and tasting rooms on the Pacific coast. Real reviews of the tequila and mezcal tours worth booking, in the towns where the spirit is actually made.
Worth a trip for the spirit alone
The three ways Mexico drinks its agave.
Tequila in the fields of Jalisco, mezcal in the smoke of an Oaxaca palenque, and every bottle in the country poured across a Mexico City bar. Three different agave worlds, each one a reason to go.
Jalisco
Tequila at the source
Only one place on earth can legally call it tequila, and Jalisco is its centre. A day out of Guadalajara runs you through fields of blue agave stretching to the volcano, onto the floor of a working distillery to see the ovens, the crushing and the copper stills, and into the tasting room for blanco, reposado and anejo poured by the people who make them. The barrel-strength pours and the cantaritos on the ride home are the part everyone tells their friends about.
- 1 Full Day Tour to Tequila and Amatitán with Fun and Culture
- 2 The Agave Experience Tequila Tour in Jalisco
- 3 Full Day in Tequila with Tasting and party in Cantaritos
Oaxaca
Mezcal in the palenques
Tequila has a smokier, older cousin, and Oaxaca is its home. A trip into the valleys reaches the family palenques where agave hearts roast in earth pits over wood and stone, then crush under a horse-drawn tahona before the slow distillation. You taste espadin and the wild varietals straight from the still, often with the mezcalero who made them, on the same day you stand at the petrified falls of Hierve el Agua.
- 1 Hierve el Agua, Tule Tree, Mitla and Mezcal Distillery Tour
- 2 Explore Hierve el Agua, Mitla, Tule, Textile and Mezcal for a day
- 3 Boil the water and distillery mezcal tour
Mexico City
Cantinas and mezcalerias
The capital is where every agave spirit in the country ends up in a glass. A night here moves from the century-old downtown cantinas to the candle-lit mezcalerias, a guide ordering the bottles you would never find on your own and pairing them with tacos al pastor between stops. Tie it to ringside seats at lucha libre and you have the loudest, best night out in Mexico City.
- 1 Lucha Libre Tickets & Tacos & Beer & Mezcal – BEST NIGHT EVER!
- 2 Lucha Libre Tour and Mezcal Tasting in Mexico City
- 3 Mexico City: Tequila and Mezcal Museum Tour with Tasting
If you only book one
The agave day more travellers rave about than any other.
Out of every tequila and mezcal tour across Mexico, this is the one people come home telling everyone they know to book.
The crowd-pleasers
The Most Popular Tequila Tours Right Now
Jalisco distillery days, Oaxaca mezcal trips, Cabo desert runs and Pacific-coast tasting rooms. The bookings travellers are happiest they made.
Start with a town
The best tequila tours, town by town.
Guadalajara for the distillery day trips, Tequila for the source itself, Oaxaca City for the mezcal palenques. Pick the town you are headed to and we will show you the agave tours worth booking there.
Where the spirit is made
Three Mexicos, three things in the glass.
Start with what you came to drink. Each of these is a part of Mexico the site covers deeply, and a different kind of agave day waiting at the end of it.
Guadalajara
A day trip into agave country.
Guadalajara is the jumping-off point for the real thing: an hour out of the city the blue agave fields begin, rolling toward the volcano that gives them their flavour. The day runs you onto a working distillery floor to watch the ovens, the crushing and the copper stills, then into the tasting room for blanco, reposado and anejo, with cantaritos on the bus ride back.
See the best Guadalajara tequila tours →Oaxaca
Into the valleys for mezcal.
An Oaxaca mezcal trip leaves the city for the family palenques in the valleys: agave hearts roasting in earth pits over wood and stone, the horse-drawn tahona crushing them, the slow drip of the still. You taste espadin and the wild varietals straight from the source, often with the mezcalero pouring, and most trips fold in the petrified waterfalls of Hierve el Agua on the same day.
See the best Oaxaca mezcal tours →Tequila, Jalisco
The town that gave the drink its name.
An hour from Guadalajara, ringed by blue agave and watched over by its own volcano, sits the Pueblo Magico of Tequila. This is the source: the historic houses of Jose Cuervo and Sauza, the family distilleries down the side streets, the jimadores who still harvest the agave by hand. Ride out on the old tequila route, walk a cellar, and taste it where it is born.
See the best Tequila town tours →Mexico City after dark
Every agave spirit in the country, in a glass.
The capital is where tequila and mezcal from every state end up across a bar. An evening tour moves from the century-old downtown cantinas to candle-lit mezcalerias, a guide ordering the bottles you would never find alone and pairing them with tacos al pastor between stops. Many nights start at ringside seats for lucha libre.
- 1 Lucha Libre Tickets & Tacos & Beer & Mezcal – BEST NIGHT EVER!
- 2 Lucha Libre Tour and Mezcal Tasting in Mexico City
- 3 Mexico City: Tequila and Mezcal Museum Tour with Tasting
By the glass
How far do you want to go for the tasting?
A calm afternoon at a Mexico City bar. A hands-on mixology class on the Pacific. A full source-to-glass day in the agave fields of Jalisco. Pick the one that sounds like your kind of day with a glass in hand.
Ease in
Mexico City, at the bar.No early start, no minibus. A guide walks you between the old downtown cantinas and a tucked-away mezcaleria, pours the bottles worth knowing, and explains the difference between an espadin and a tobala while you sip. The agave education, none of the dust.
Hands on
Puerto Vallarta, shaken and poured.A mixology session on the Pacific: muddle, shake and pour your own palomas and margaritas, taste tequila beside its agave cousin mezcal, and learn what blanco, reposado and anejo actually mean. You leave knowing how to make the drink, not just order it.
All in
Jalisco, source to glass.The full day out of Guadalajara into agave country: blue fields to the horizon, a working distillery floor, the oven and the still, and tastings poured straight from the barrel before the cantaritos come out and the bus turns festive on the way home.
Puerto Vallarta
Tequila, the easy Pacific way.
On the coast the agave comes to you. Vallarta pairs the tasting with the rest of a good day: a hands-on mixology class shaking your own palomas and margaritas, a tequila-and-mezcal flight with the ocean in view, a zipline canopy run or a backcountry ATV ride that finishes at the tasting table. The spirit education without the long bus into the hills.
See all 49 Puerto Vallarta tours →By place
Pick the part of Mexico you are headed to.
Guadalajara for the distillery day trips. Puerto Vallarta for the Pacific tasting rooms. Cabo for the desert runs. Mexico City for the cantinas. Oaxaca City for the mezcal palenques. Cancun for the cenote-and-tasting days.
More places
More of Mexico, glass in hand.
Mazatlan and San Jose del Cabo on the coast, Cozumel and Tulum on the Riviera Maya, San Miguel de Allende in the highlands, the town of Tequila itself. The rest of the map, ready when you are.
Three regions, three agave days
Pick a region, plan the day around the glass.
A source day in Jalisco, a mezcal day in Oaxaca, an easy desert day in Baja. Three regions, three very different ways to spend a day with agave.
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