Oaxacan Lady

2026-07-23 Mezcal Liqueurs Stars - 4 Tarus

Yet another drop down into the equal proportions cocktail rabbit hole. I present the Oaxacan Lady:

Oaxacan Lady cocktail: a yellow colored cocktail in a glass

3/4 ounce mezcal

3/4 ounce Bénédictine

3/4 ounce Amaro Montenegro

3/4 ounce lime juice

2 dashes Bitterman’s Xoxolatl Mole bitters

Shake all ingredients with ice, then strain into a coupe.

Back when Twitter had a non-zero signal-to-noise ratio, I used to love chatting and following other cocktail nerds like Ted Haigh, David Wondrich, Brother Cleve (who, unfortunately, is no longer with us but once sent me to a dive bar in Pittsburgh where I got wanded with a metal detector and stinky drunk on amazing cocktails), and others. They were so free with advice to a newbie like me and I learned a lot from them.

Now I am only on two social networks: LinkedIn (for work) and Mastodon.

I really like Mastodon but the learning curve can be steep, especially if you are locked-in to the Twitter/X/Bluesky paradigm. There is a lot of upside: no central server lock-in, it’s open source, and I follow just enough people that I get a good amount of information without being drowned in it.

The downside is that there aren’t nearly as many people on “the Fediverse” as on other options, so I no longer get to interact with the cocktail crowd.

There is one exception: Frederic Yarm. Like most of the people I follow on Masto, I’m not sure how I came across him, but he recently posted about one of his creations, the Oaxacan Lady, being featured on a YouTube video and I decided to check it out.

According to the website where I found the recipe, it is based on another cocktail called the Spanish Lady (note that when I search for it, AI brings up a gin-based drink with the same name but I’m looking at the one on Frederic’s blog).

It jumped out at me because while some of the ingredients were a little obscure, I happened to have all of them.

Well, with the exception of the mole bitters. I have a decent collection of bitters, including some from Bitterman’s, but I didn’t have the Xoxolatl Mole bitters called for and they seemed a little spendy on Amazon for use in one drink. I did have some Fee Brothers Aztec Chocolate bitters so I went with that, although I should note that Fee Brothers also make a Mole Bitters so I knew I wasn’t getting quite the flavor profile but I made it anyway (grin).

I was introduced to Amaro Montenegro via one of my favorite cocktails, Life is Beautiful, so I keep it on hand. I bought the Bénédictine for the Vieux Carré cocktail when I was making all of the drinks in Ted Haigh’s book.

This is a really nice cocktail. The smokiness of the mezcal is complemented by the herbal liqueurs and balanced by the lime. I’m certain if I had used true mole bitters it would have added a subtle spicy kick but it worked as I made it.

While it is another equal proportion cocktail I’ll add to my repertoire, in a bar I would go for a Naked and Famous over this one, hence four stars.