Luminar Mezcal Joven

Luminar Mezcal Joven has a clear, silver appearance. The aroma is of agave juice. The flavor is of that, with black pepper and earth. Luminar Mezcal has a medium body and a somewhat slick mouthfeel. It has a medium dry finish. RJT

50ml mini bottle tasting series, tasted neat at room temp. Clear and light legs in the glass. Nose is mineral and lime citrus, kinda perfumy and floral. Funky earthy, green compost, and then a growing saline and mineral flavor battling it out in the mouth. Little smoke or ethanol. Kinda grassy and kinda flat. Finish turns sour, approaching rancid--a flavor that I now recognize was underlaying that compost--and then disappears quickly. Would appreciate some smoky agave or even some ethanol. Flat. Oddest joven mescal I've had, more like a reposado tequila, but that underlying funk... that is an odd chemical performance... not in a good way.

There are plenty better for a few more bucks.

Green agave, grass, like a pedestrian Blanco tequila. Sweet and green with pepper and some heat. Sort of watery and faint all around.

Yum

Clean and easy for starters. I'm new to mezcal and some I've tried are too intense. This is a good place to ease in. I do get some smokey sensation, but I can see where people would say it is light.

Rating: 10/23 N: Kind of vegetal with a bit of spice, a little herbal funk, some sweetness (squash?) from the vegetables, and a hint of smoke. The complexity is decent, but the profile is all over the place and I'm not picking up a lot of smoke here. P: I get sort of a spicy wood flavor with a smoky element, sort of like a charred barrel, but also kind of sulphuric. I get some restrained lemon juice at points with a dash of salinity. It's not bad, but not what I expect of mezcal either. There's quite a bit of minerality that makes me think kind of of Patrón and there's this kind of sweet funkiness that reminds me of El Jimador. The flavor strikes me as immature and more like tequila than mezcal. There are some herbal, sort of vegetal, dirt flavors going on here. The palate is kind of harsh, yet watery (likely due to the low proof). I appreciate the complexity, but the overall impression it leaves me with is negative because of the harshness and kind of off character. I would probably have guessed that this was a reposado. F: The finish shows off more of the harshness while highlighting some spice, the bitter, dregs of the herbal and vegetal flavors, and minerality. This is my least favorite part of the experience. - Conclusion - This is a tough one to judge. It's interesting, but it's challenging and also clearly inferior to Los Vecinos Espadin. The harshness doesn't help either. With Los Vecinos being a 15 and this being definitely worse, I think that something in the 9 to 13 range is appropriate. The muddled nature of the various flavors combined with the sulphur pushes me toward the lower end of that range. I'm looking at a 9 to 10 for this now. I'm thinking a 10.

Not smokey at all on the nose. Smells like a tequila blanca- vegetal. Tastes very clean- no smoke. Really good. Just not the smokey mezcal I’m looking for, but a solid silver tequila.