400 Conejos: The Mezcal Named After 400 Rabbit Gods

The Aztecs did not believe there was one god of drunkenness. They counted four hundred of them.

The Four Hundred Rabbits

The brand takes its name from the centzon-totochtin, which is Nahuatl for "four hundred rabbits." These were the gods of agave drink, and in Mesoamerican tradition the beverages made from agave were not casual. The producer describes a sacred practice in which priests and the spiritual elite drank them to commune with the gods.

The number matters less than it looks. In Nahuatl, four hundred also stood in for "innumerable" and "uncountable." So the name is not a headcount. It is a way of saying there are more kinds of intoxication than anyone bothered to tally, which is a more honest description of drinking than most brands attempt.

How It Is Actually Made

This is the part that separates mezcal from tequila, and it is worth understanding before you taste anything.

Tequila is made only from Blue Weber agave, and the agave is cooked with steam. Mezcal can be made from more than two dozen agave species, and the agave is roasted with fire.

For 400 Conejos, in Tlacolula, Oaxaca, that process runs like this. Espadín agave is harvested and the piñas, the cores of the plant, are fire-roasted in a cone-shaped wood oven. The cooked piñas are then milled with a tahona, a heavy stone wheel dragged in a circle by a horse. Fermentation happens in wooden tubs. Then it is distilled twice.

Every smoky note in the glass comes from that first step. It is not a flavoring or a finishing cask. It is the residue of agave cooked over wood and hot rock underground.

Espadín, and Why Everything Starts There

Espadín is the workhorse agave of Oaxaca and the most widely used agave in mezcal by a long way. It matures in roughly six to eight years, fast by agave standards, and it can be farmed rather than foraged.

Being the common one undersells it. Espadín is the reference point for the category. If you want to understand what the rare wild agaves are doing differently, you first need to know what Espadín tastes like on its own.

What It Tastes Like

Joven means unaged, so nothing in this glass came from a barrel.

The producer's own notes describe an aroma of campfire and ash with faint ripe fruit and light herbal notes, a soft palate of fresh wood and sweet cooked agave, and a smoky finish. That tracks. The sweetness reads closer to a roasted sweet potato than to anything green, and the smoke sits in the background rather than taking over.

It is bottled at 40% ABV.

How to Drink It

The producer is specific about this, and the advice is good: pour it into a wide-mouthed glass, avoid plastic, and drink slowly. Mezcal opens in the glass, and rushing it wastes most of what you paid for.

The traditional accompaniment is a slice of orange with sal de gusano, the salt made with dried agave worm. Citrus generally works well alongside it.

Pair It With

Grilled and charred food. Yakitori off the binchotan, anything that already carries a bit of smoke.

Salt and citrus on the side follow the same logic as the orange and sal de gusano tradition.

Try It at Juraku

400 Conejos is part of the agave selection at Izakaya Juraku, Lower East Side. Bottles on this shelf rotate, so check the current menu or ask the bar what is open.