Honey Pot
A New Temple of Tequila

You’ve crossed borders for a bottle of pure, mind-altering, worm-free tequila.

So it follows that you’d cross bodies of water for it too.

And today, you’re in luck, because we’ve found a bar committed solely to your favorite agave-based spirit, and it’s just across the Bay.

Welcome Miel, a new temple of tequila, mezcal, sotol and margaritas, open now next to Tamarindo in Oakland.

As the tequila-spiked offshoot of Tamarindo, Miel (Spanish for “honey” and named after the color of aged tequilas) is where you’ll go to get the kind of tequila you’d find aging in a tiny village in Mexico’s lowlands.

When you walk inside, you’ll see the bar, backed by an exposed brick wall that gives the tin-ceilinged place a bit of a hacienda feel. And as they say, once in a hacienda... order some tequila—like a few ounces of the Fortaleza Añejo, with a spiciness characteristic of tequilas from the lowlands, chased with Miel’s housemade dried worm-chile salt or a vegetarian sangrita.

There are also about a dozen specialty tequila cocktails, like the riff on a Manhattan known as the DF. Though the Mayan, rimmed with black volcanic salt, has that Hawaii-meets-Mexico edginess you rarely find in a glass.

And since no two visits should be alike, make sure to ask about their stash of off-the-menu tequilas like the Carmessi—an oxygen-infused tequila made by an all-woman-run distillery.

This one might deserve its own border crossing.