This 12-seat Tequila Bar May Be the Coolest Cocktail Spot in Mexico

Down a cobblestoned road in San Miguel de Allende‘s Centro neighborhood is a slim home with a vibrant blue double door. Use one of many horse-shaped door titties, and also you’ll be ushered inside La Casa Dragones, which simply might need the good cocktail bar in Mexico. Final yr, small-batch tequila producer Casa Dragones — whose bottles seem on the cabinets of the world’s high bars and eating places, together with Enrique Olvera’s Pujol, in Mexico Metropolis — did a considerable renovation that reworked it right into a luxurious tasting venue.

Lengthy earlier than it was a spot to pattern high-end spirits, the property served as a steady for Mexico’s legendary Dragones cavalry, who ignited Mexico’s independence motion in 1810 (and served as inspiration for the identify of Casa Dragones). The area nonetheless honors that legacy — the redesign, led by Mexican architect Marco Martinez Valle and New York–based mostly studio Meyer Davis, made use of the home’s unique stone partitions and picket doorways. 

Casa Dragones additionally tapped Mexican artists like Héctor Esrawe, who created a towering mild fixture for the constructing’s three-story staircase, to enliven the interiors. The centerpiece, although, is the bar, which gleams with tiles manufactured from black volcanic-glass stone, taken from the model’s agave fields in Jalisco. 

This homage to Mexican supplies and terroir was vital to Casa Dragones’s CEO, Bertha González Nieves, who created the label with MTV founder Bob Pittman in 2009. That very same yr, she grew to become the world’s first feminine Maestra Tequilera. (This, the very best title within the business, is awarded to the one who defines a model’s tequila method and manufacturing.) “I’m dedicated to bringing the very best of Mexico to the world,” she says. “I hope that’s what my legacy will likely be.” 

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González Nieves was impressed to discover a profession distilling and selling tequila when she participated in a global youth alternate program sponsored by the Japanese authorities. She was tasked with touring all through Mexico to study concerning the nation’s tradition, together with agave cultivation.

Casa Dragones produces not more than 500 circumstances at a time, and every batch is comprised of blue agave crops that have been chosen and picked by hand. “Our appellation of origin is the oldest within the Americas and probably the most revered around the globe,” González Nieves says. Using a way known as pepita, or “little seed,” artisans use a grinding stone or wheel to etch the picture of an agave plant into every handcrafted bottle.

Tastings of the model’s 4 sipping tequilas are supplied on the 12-seat bar. They’re paired with small plates, equivalent to mushroom tostadas topped with avocado mousse and serrano. Personal dinners and cocktail receptions can be organized. (Presently, the Casa is offered for in a single day stays by invitation solely.) 

One providing that has particular resonance for González Nieves is the model’s latest label, Casa Dragones Reposado Mizunara. It’s the world’s first tequila to be aged in Mizunara oak casks, the identical form used for Japanese whiskies. “I prefer to drink it with a small ice dice,” she says, “to permit the refined apricot and cacao notes to open and develop.”

A model of this story first appeared within the November 2024 problem of Journey + Leisure beneath the headline “Cheers to San Miguel.“