Taco night
Smoke & Sting
Cocktail
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 oz mezcal (or reposado tequila)
- 1/2 oz fresh lime juice
- 2 dashes grapefruit bitters
- Hoppy Penelope hard honey to fill (about 4 oz)
Method
Build mezcal, lime and bitters in a collins glass over ice, stir briefly, then fill with cold Hoppy Penelope and give one gentle lift. Keep the pour angled to preserve the hop aromatics riding the carbonation.
Collins · Garnish: Expressed grapefruit twist
Why it works
Hop myrcene and humulene overlap directly with agave's terpene profile, and citrusy hop thiols like 3-mercaptohexanol read as fresh grapefruit — which the bitters then echo on purpose. Mezcal's smoke phenols against the mead's honey sweetness create the same smoky-sweet tension that makes a mezcal paloma work.