If you ever find yourself thirsty in the Los Feliz neighborhood, head to a bar/restaurant called Mírate on Vermont and cruise up a long flight of stairs with a red neon sign that reads MEZCAL.
There you'll find a partially enclosed second-floor outdoor patio with plenty of natural light and an inside/outside dining room with a large tree extending towards the ceiling.
While the food at Mírate is downright delightful, with botanas (bar snacks in Mexico) and larger entrees, the cocktails drew me to the upstairs dining area, which feels like you are sitting above the clouds.
There, Max Reis, the beverage director, and his team have cultivated one of the most forward-thinking Mexican-inspired bar programs I’ve ever encountered in L.A.
They gave me a glimpse of their newly unveiled cocktail menu — they plan to roll out more drinks gradually throughout next year.
Their goal is to use sustainable, ethically sourced spirits using technologically advanced formulas, maintaining strong relationships with small-batch producers back in Mexico.
My favorite drink there — so far— is the Tu Compa, their take on a Paloma, which is traditionally made with tequila and a splash of grapefruit soda, such as Squirt or Jarritos.
However, this is Mírate, and there are no shortcuts.
The process starts with clarifying grapefruit juice through a centrifuge and carbonating it. That's added to high-proof tequila, along with pulque, a milky liquid made from the fermented sap of the maguey agave plant, which goes back to Aztec times. Then Mexican sake from Sinaloa is added and some bittersweet pomegranate amaro liqueur.
It’s then canned in-house, to preserve the carbonation, and poured tableside in a tall glass with white salted pulque paint.
When I tried it, I was surprised — it was light, refreshing and delicious, unlike anything I've drunk before.
Regular brand tequila is usually produced from industrial, commercial agave farms, often harmful to the environment, relying on cheap labor.
Reis instead travels once a month to Mexico to cultivate relationships with small farmers, making sure they're paid fairly. That also means honoring the product as it's made and not asking them to change anything.
“We don't have them cater to us,” he says.
This desire to change the status quo doesn't stop there, however. On the can's bright yellow label there's a QR code, which takes you to an online video game called Agave Defender. It's a cheeky Space Invader-style game, where customers can blast flying bottles of Casamigos tequila — the poster child of the celebrity-owned spirit game.
I won’t spoil who the final boss is, as you should check the game out yourself. It's a lot of fun, and a memorable way to get their message across.
Reis provides a refreshing take when explaining his beverage philosophy: “We take everything incredibly seriously, but we also don't take ourselves too seriously.”
The restaurant's new menu (which resembles a photocopied zine, complete with a crossword puzzle in the back) symbolizes the beginning of Mírate's next chapter.
Whatever that next chapter looks like, I can’t wait to see what they come up with.
