Spirit Cruises January 2023 Leaderboard

Bar Rescue Host Jon Taffer Thinks Mezcal & Mescaline Are Made From the Same Thing

by Nina Starner on Apr 1, 2016 in Culture

Bar Rescue’s Jon Taffer did an interview with Huffington Post this week where he doled out some seriously iffy bar wisdom, including misidentifying what tequila actually is.

In the interview (which is full of other gems, like when he says that old fashioneds are underrated because they’re “almost all liquor” or when he says if you have to signal a busy bartender, it’s actually their fault), Taffer originally claimed that mezcal, tequila’s smokier cousin, was made from, uh, mescaline. Here’s the exact quote, which Huffington Post has since removed:

"I’m not sure if there’s a definition of one gets you angry or not, but tequila is inherently made from mezcal, which mescaline, the hallucinogenic drug is made from. So tequila can have a hallucinogenic component, you might be talking to someone who’s not there. (Laughs)"

Yikes.

Taffer may not be the bar expert he claims to be. There’s a Facebook group of bartenders against Taffer, and FoodRepublic has already written a response to this Huffington Post gaffe. Is this really the guy we want rescuing our bars??

Image via Flickr user Gage Skidmore

Tags: Tequila
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