Kiva

• 1.5 oz. Del Maguey Vida mezcal
• 0.5 oz. Leyendas Puebla mezcal
• 0.5 oz. Xila Licor de Agave
• 0.5 oz. pineapple liqueur (Giffard)
• 0.25 oz. smoky and/or peaty Scotch (Talisker Dark Storm)
• 0.25 oz. cinnamon syrup
• dash of Bitters, Old Men Chipotle Single Malt bitters

Stir with ice and strain into coupe.

I had just recently picked up Xila, with its spicy pineapple agave profile, and wanted to try it in a mezcal cocktail. I started with Vida as a base, but found in my finished drink I craved a more distinct mezcal sip so added a half ounce of Leyendas Puebla as well.

Xila is sweet, but not overly, so I added Giffard’s Caribbean Pineapple to enhance what was present in Xila, and the cinnamon syrup brought additional spice and sweetness. The chipotle bitters from Bitters, Old Men tied in with the spice, and I found the peatiness a welcome quality, so boosted this with a bit of Scotch. The result is spicy, sweet, smoky stirred pineapple and agave drink.

A kiva is sunken, round ceremonial chamber in a pueblo. I had believed this to be also the name for the adobe ovens, but looking into it further see nothing supporting that other than captions for a number of online images, which do refer to kiva ovens. Any definition I find for these ovens, however, identifies them as hornos, and ovens never really played a part in structural kiva.

All that said, Kiva made me think of smoke and earth and mezcal, and Horno wasn’t as appealing a name, so there it is. Salud.