Sotol shot served with sliced fruit.

While vodka has dominated the U.S. spirits market since the 1970s, tequila is threatening to take its crown. Unfortunately, industry experts believe the boom in tequila sales has led to the overplanting of agave, the Mexican liquor’s source, which is expected to cause a price implosion around 2026. Enter sotol, a little-known North American spirit that’s poised to shake up the drinking world. (In 2017, Esquire predicted it could replace mezcal and tequila.) Aside from the newness factor, there are many reasons for the recent growth in popularity of sotol liquor — it’s a gluten-free, organic, sustainable and tasty to drink, to name a few.

Keep reading for everything you need to know about sotol.

Sotol is the name for both the distillate and its source: the sotol plant, a desert shrub native to the Chihuahuan Desert that spans West Texas, northern Mexico and southern portions of New Mexico and Arizona. The spiny succulent, often called desert spoon, is in the asparagus family and a close relative of the agave plant.

A tall flowering stalk shoots up from the center of the plant during the summer months and can grow up to 15 feet. The genus name of the sotol plant is Dasylirion, and Flora of North America recognizes at least 17 different species of the plant, which resembles a giant sea urchin. The leaves of these plants have traditionally been used to weave baskets, while it’s the bulbs that produce the spirit.

Desert spoon plant after harvest.

When the sotol plant reaches maturity, at between 10-15 years of age, the stocky heart of the plant is harvested, leaving the root system intact to ensure the plant will grow back. After the spiny leaves are removed, the heart resembles a giant brown artichoke.

Traditionally, the hearts are roasted in an earthen oven for several days using nearby firewood, which leads to a terroir flavor of the most locally abundant wood source. The hearts are then pressed to remove the sap and fermented in wooden vats before being distilled. Most sotol is consumed without aging, but some distilleries age the spirit in oak barrels. In terms of its coloring, sotol typically pours clear.

Sotol is usually described as bright and grassy but often tastes of the land withherbaceous and vegetal characteristics. Depending on the type of barrel used, aged sotols can have more of a sweet or fruity flavor with hints of dried cherries or vanilla. 

The biggest defining factor in the taste of sotol is how and where it’s made, since it grows in deserts with elevation ranges from 2,000-5,000 feet, as well as in mountain forests. The locally available wood — ranging from oak to mesquite — used for roasting also plays a role in the complex flavor. 

Agave is used to preparate mezcal.

Sotol is a spirit made from a plant of the same name, while tequila and mezcal are both made from agave, the sotol plant’s close relative. While mezcal can be made from over 30 different varieties of agave, tequila, by law, is only made from one species of blue agave,Agave tequilana, found in specific regions of Mexico. (Technically, tequila is a type of mezcal.)

Unlike sotol, the root system of an agave plant must be dug up to retrieve the hearts, which means the plants must be replanted, while sotol is wild harvested. For tequila, the agave hearts are steam-baked, while mezcal is made fairly similar to traditional sotol with earthen ovens used to roast the hearts.

Commom sotol growing in the lava fields of Valley of Fires Recreation Area, New Mexico. Its tall flower spike resembles a yucca, but it is actually in the lily family. 

Currently, sotol production is often considered less ecologically disruptive than that of agave, which is grown on farms that require more natural resources and can displace native habitats. (Climate change and an increase in droughts are both factors that could affect the future sustainability of both agave and sotol plants.) Still, research has shown that the mass-production of sotol, which is still a relatively new process, can have significant effects on the local marine ecosystem.

As for flavor, tequila typically has a more citrusy flavor, while other mezcals are known for their smokiness. Sotol is often said to be smoother and easier to drink than its agave-based cousins. Of course, the best way to understand the difference between the flavor of spirits is to taste sotol for yourself.

Traditionally, sotol is enjoyed neat, but the spirit mixes well with cocktails.It also pairs well in margaritas, sangria and a Paloma, a drink made with fresh grapefruit juice, lime juice and agave nectar. Unaged sotol can often replace any clear liquor in a cocktail, making it easy and fun to experiment with the spirit. 

Distillery bottling line at Desert Door Distillery. 

Yes, due to complicated legal reasons we’ll get to in a moment, American companies are currently free to produce sotol. For example, Desert Door Distillery opened its doors in 2017 in Driftwood, Texas, just outside of Austin, and claims to be the first maker of sotol from plants grown in the U.S., which are wild harvested from ranches in West Texas. The distillery was started by three U.S. military veterans, Ryan Campbell, Judson Kauffman and Brent Looby, who met in an MBA program at the University of Texas in 2016. Inspired by family stories of moonshine sotol being produced in West Texas, the trio decided to use Texas sotol as a fun example for a class project to create a business plan for a start-up. That business plan became Desert Door Distillery.

Other Texas-based makers of sotol that have popped up in recent years include Genius Liquids and Marfa Spirit Co., the latter of which has drawn praise for its collaborations with Mexican growers and deference to their native claim of the spirit.

Mexican sotol is made from several different species of the sotol plant,  while Texas sotol is only made from one as of now. Desert Door’s Texas sotol is made from the thinner-leafed Dasylirion texanum. Instead of roasting the sotol hearts in the traditional, Mexican-pioneered method, Desert Door steams the hearts43 it uses. After a lot of experimentation and home distilling, the founders tried methods including roasting, smoking, baking and steaming, before discovering that the latter was the more efficient method and produced the smoothest flavor.

A sotol plant, Dasylirion wheeleri, also known as the dessert spoon. 

While sotol is generating a lot of buzz these days, it actually has a long and controversial history that has kept it mostly a secret until recent years

“Paintings on rock walls of shelters and ancient artifacts utilizing sotol in West Texas and northern Mexico date back to 7,000 B.C., and it’s very possible that beverages could have been made from the plant as well,” says Jeffery Keeling, a lecturer on biology and natural resource management at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas. “The Rarámuri, or Tarahumara, tribe, which was historically distributed throughout southern Chihuahua and northern Durango, made a beer-like alcoholic beverage possibly as early as 800 years ago and weren’t introduced to distillation techniques until Spanish colonization in the 16th century.”

Sotol was first mass-produced by various sotoleros in the 1930s. Often compared to moonshine, it earned a negative reputation and drew the wrath of the Mexican government, who outlawed it in 1944. The production of sotol was illegal for 50 years until its ban was lifted in 1994.

Desert Door Distillery makes Texas Sotol from wild-harvested sotol plants in Driftwood, Texas. 

In 2002, a denomination of origin for sotol was granted by the Mexican government, specifying that the term could only be used for the spirit produced in the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila and Durango. This designation is similar to how champagne can only be produced in the Champagne region of France in order to be called such. Elsewhere, it is referred to simply as sparkling wine. A similar denomination of origin was granted to Mexico by the U.S. and Canada for tequila and mezcal as part of the North American Trade Agreement, orNAFTA, in 1994, when sotol was still illegal. When NAFTA was replaced with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, orUSMCA, in 2020, a similar denomination of origin for sotol and six other Mexican spirits was included in the initial draft but later excluded before passage. This leaves tequila and mezcal as the only two spirits to which Mexico has the exclusive production rights, as of now.Art:

While sotol is still a relatively small market, the appearance of sotol distilleries in the U.S. has ignited this debate among some Mexican distilleries, activists and government officials who are concerned that American-made sotol equates to cultural appropriation. They also believe it could hurt their market share and lead to inferior, unregulated products flooding the market under the name sotol. Currently, no major corporate interests are yet involved in sotol production on either side of the border, making it highly unlikely the entire treaty would be renegotiated just for this spirit, according to Texas Monthly.