A nature-lover, are you? So your evening hikes along the Rillito River Park Trail consist of sitting at a barstool drinking tequila, while the man next to you pulls up pictures of plants on his cell phone ...
You must have gotten into Reforma. The lively Mexico City-style restaurant in the former home of Vivace, 4310 N. Campbell Ave., hosts what’s probably Tucson’s best collection of agave-based spirits: 260-plus tequilas, mezcals, sotols and the only Bacanora you can bring into the United States.
Co-owner Grant Krueger has cultivated a library of the plant’s many expressions, displayed high up on the walls in compartments only reached by ladder.
While you’re at Reforma, expect to be educated. Browsing through the scrollable iPad menu, I wondered aloud about the Sonoran specialty Bacanora. That launched the bartender and the patron to my right, sipping his tequila like a fine Scotch, into stories about Mexican moonshine and how the “desert spoon” used in sotol differs from blue agave in tequila.
This can be a little intimidating, so I wouldn’t blame you if you stick to a standby like Patron, or spring for a cocktail instead.
The smart list contains a number of hybrids like the Maestro Gentry: an Oaxacan old fashioned that features both tequila and Del Maguey mezcal, and tastes like smoky candy. (It’s named after an authority on agave, Howard S. Gentry.)
I tried the Vocho Verde, which isn’t made from agave at all but from pisco, a clear grape brandy distilled in the deserts of Peru. Usually the liquor is slapped into a foamy sweet pisco sour, its grape flavor heavy like a fruit pop. But shimmering in the martini glass, the herbal pisco tasted almost like gin, lightly muddled with fresh cucumber and mixed with lime and vibrant Green Chartreuse. A thin sliver of cucumber floated on top displaying its delicate seeds, like a lily flower.
The man next to me didn’t seem to approve. He drinks his liquor neat, savoring the intricacies of the base spirit and the way the humble succulent transforms itself into something so complex: a golden, divine liquid. Since their bottle of Cielo Rojo Bacanora was almost gone, the bartender brought out the remaining half shot for me to try on the house. It was incredibly smoky and rich, almost like molasses, with a smoothness that reminded me of great sake. It was like nothing I’ve ever tasted ... and I want it again.
