In September 2024, the story of Ilegal Mezcal, Mal de Amor, and the Hernandez brothers was beautifully told on 60 Minutes. Cecilia Vega traveled to Oaxaca and interviewed Global Brand Ambassador Gilbert Marquez, founder John Rexer, and our partner mezcaleros, Armando and Alvaro Hernandez.
You can now watch the segment here on 60 Minutes.
From our founding, Ilegal Mezcal has strived to build the sort of community & environment that Café No Sé, the birthplace of Ilegal, has long provided artists and musicians.
Since the start of the pandemic, in order to keep our friends, families, and partners safe, we have cancelled large scale, in-person events and introduced new virtual programming. We are in this together, and we look forward to bellying up to the bar with you again soon.
Made with 100% Espadín agave, our Joven, Reposado, and Añejo mezcals are perfect neat. Our aged mezcals are rested in a combination of new and used American oak, medium char barrels, a unique and complex taste for those who enjoy sipping spirits.
Our mezcals are also exceptional in cocktails – originals and reimagined classics alike. Check out our signature mezcal cocktail recipes, and try Ilegal as the base spirit in a Mezcal Margarita, a Mezcal Mule, or your favorite cocktail.
Ilegal Mezcal has a beautifully balanced profile, with a mouthful of agave and a hint of smoke.
Handcrafted in small batches by fourth-generation mezcaleros, our Joven, Reposado, and Añejo mezcals are all made with 100% Espadín agave, double distilled in the Santiago Matatlan Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico.
Commitment to quality is apparent in every step of our process, from harvest to first sip.
Please be advised that order payment processing and order fulfillment are facilitated through a 3rd party retailer.
Ilegal Mezcal does not sell, offer to sell or solicit sales of alcohol through ilegalmezcal.com. Ilegal Mezcal markets its mezcal on its website. Ilegal Mezcal’s service enables you to search online for mezcal available for sale by a licensed alcohol retailer. Through this website, you learn about our mezcal, including its price. The offer to purchase mezcal ultimately is from the Retailer. If you decide to purchase mezcal, you make the payment to the Retailer and the Retailer fulfills your order, including the delivery of the purchased mezcal. This arrangement is not meant to facilitate any improper furnishing of inducements by any manufacturer, importer, supplier, wholesaler or distributor of mezcal to any retailer of alcoholic beverages or to facilitate any improper exclusionary practices by any alcohol beverage licensee. This service may be limited or not available at all in some places due to local law or other restrictions.
We ship to all states in the US, plus DC, except for Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Hawaii, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming.
Please plan accordingly by entering a shipping address and date that will allow someone 21 years or older to be available in person to sign for the package, and by keeping a valid form of ID on hand.
Carriers will not leave packages containing alcohol unattended, even if you have a signature on file. If you are not able to be at home to receive your mezcal during normal business hours, we recommend having it shipped to your place of work, or opting to have your shipment held at the nearest FedEx or UPS pick-up location. After 3 unsuccessful delivery attempts, packages are returned to the 3rd party fulfillment center, and orders are automatically cancelled and refunded.
Mezcal will not be delivered to a visibly intoxicated person.
It is our goal to fulfill and ship all orders within 1-3 business days after an order is placed. Fulfillment time depends on what time of day the order is placed and what day the order is placed on. Customers will be notified if product out-of-stock issues or other issues like weather may cause delays in shipment.
When your package has been created with a shipping label and has been sent out into the mail stream, you will receive an email notification with tracking information.
Orders are shipped from fulfillment centers in CT, NY, NJ, MA, DC, IL, FL, and CA, and generally take 1-7 days for delivery when shipped ground. Orders to Oklahoma and Texas may take slightly longer, due to the use of local carriers in those states.
If it has been more than three business days and you have not received a tracking email, please contact question@ilegalmezcal.com for assistance.
We recommend that customers on the West Coast place orders early in the week to decrease the likelihood that an order sits in a shipping warehouse over the weekend.
Ilegal Mezcal assumes no liability for mezcal damaged due to poor weather during transport or delayed delivery. Please check weather conditions prior to order and ensure that someone will be available to receive the mezcal upon delivery. The most frequent cause of damaged mezcal is due to multiple delivery attempts. Please monitor your package tracking to ensure on-time delivery.
MEZCAL PRODUCTS
If you are not satisfied with your mezcal product order, please contact question@ilegalmezcal.com to explain the reasons for your dissatisfaction. We do our best to respond to all customer service issues within 24 hours.
We are happy to accept returns or re-send bottles for orders that meet one or more of the following conditions:
We unfortunately are unable to accept returns for mezcal product orders that meet the following conditions:
If you need to return a bottle, please keep the items in as close to the condition in which you received it as possible. This includes opened bottles. Doing this helps us better evaluate potential flaws in the mezcal or packaging.
In the event that we ask that you return items back to us, we will create and send a shipping label with our address to you so you may ship the mezcal back to us free of charge.
Upon receipt of a returned flawed, damaged or incorrect bottle of mezcal, we will send a replacement bottle to you free of charge or place a credit on your account in the amount of the returned mezcal.
We will accept qualified returns for mezcal products within 60-days of delivery. After that point, we cannot accept returns because we are unable to verify that mezcal has been stored properly.
We evaluate all customer service issues on an individual basis and we reserve the right to accept or deny any request that we deem to be an exception to the standards outlined above.
MERCHANDISE PRODUCTS
All merchandise products are final sale. We do not accept returns or exchanges for any of our merchandise products.
Ilegal Mezcal: Tell us a bit about yourself!
Qualin: I’m a laid back guy that loves to make sure the people around me are in a good mood and having fun. I’m the creator of the social media platforms Confessions of a Server, and @qharris8 on TikTok and Instagram. These platforms are great ways for me to share my creativity with the world and put a few smiles on people’s faces. At the end of the day, I’m a cool dude that loves to chill, have a drink or two, and vibe out to some good music.
What’s your favorite way of drinking mezcal?
QH: My favorite way of drinking mezcal is on the rocks with an orange slice.
Best dive bar in your city or hometown
QH: The dive bar, or as I like to call it, my “home bar”, that I go to in my city (Toledo, Ohio) is Fusion Bistro. Cool little spot where I know all the bartenders, and it has a good patio for some day drinking in the summer.
Go-to margarita recipe?
QH: Mezcal or tequila, triple sec, and pineapple juice. It’s not the traditional marg but it’s very simple and tastes so good.
Take $10 off cocktail kits with code CONFESSIONS10
The video directed and shot by Israel Ramos, with art direction by Kïa Tavernier, is straight out of Richland Farms in the heart of Compton. Based in this historic part of Los Angeles the ranch has been a family establishment, home to the Compton Cowboys since the 1980s.
The history of the vaquero is entwined with the history of African Americans – a major inspiration for the Ilegal Mezcal x Compton Cowboys partnership. In the spirit of the men of color that paved the way for the Compton Cowboys, men born enslaved but whose lives left lasting legacies of strength, men like the original lone ranger, Bass Reeves, our modern day cowboys ride. These tales of equine and personal bravery have become legend, and Randy Savvy, leader of the cowboys, seems nostalgic repeating one of the cowboy’s personal mantras “Streets raised us, horses saved us”.
The Compton Cowboys is a collective of lifelong friends on a mission to uplift their community through horseback and farming lifestyle, all the while highlighting the rich legacy of African Americans in equine and western heritage. The Compton Jr. Equestrians program was developed to serve inner-city youth in the hub city of Compton, along with local areas. CJE was formed in response to the lack of programs available to youth in the community who are at risk for dropping out of school, incarceration, and poverty.
Connecting communities of color to their origins is a driving force behind the Compton Cowboys. Often within these origin stories lives hardship. As one cowboy, Keiara, beautifully put it “Saving a horse, you have to understand how they experience adversity. You feel just the way that I feel. You hurt just the way that I hurt. You experience pain just how I experience pain”. Healing begins with education and that is where the story begins for the Cowboys. Randy Savvy speaks with pride about his and the Cowboy’s and the next generations role in their neighborhoods, and other communities similar to Compton, how they can continue to inspire the further generations of cowpokes. He hopes to reclaim these stories for Black and brown cowboys, a noble goal of rewriting our history.
At its core the cowboy life is simple – an open air fire, acoustic guitar and a bottle of mezcal, never forgetting one’s love for community, family and culture. The Compton Cowboy message is clear, keep your head to the sky, keep dreaming. It’s gonna be a better day tomorrow, as long as you get up. It’s about showing faces, skin color, and culture, evoking that spirit of history, and rewriting it.
