The Singer from Van Halen Just Launched a Tequila-Mezcal Hybrid

Raiding your cupboards at 3 AM for last-resort party drinks never ends well. That leftover bottle of Christmas Bailey's mixed with the unopened limoncello your mum brought back from Italy and a few glugs of unidentified spirit (Rum? Whisky? Gone-off salad dressing?) isn't going to make a delicious cocktail. What it will almost certainly do, however, is give you a banging headache tomorrow morning.

But for former Van Halen vocalist Sammy Hagar and Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine, mixing spirits in the small hours led to a fortuitous discovery. As The Spirits Business reports, the two musicians (who first met as coaches on The Voice, and apparently bonded over a shared love of tequila), were drinking together one night on a beach in Cabo, Mexico. They came up with the totally zany idea of pouring tequila into a glass with mezcal.

And so, "mezquila" was born.

Levine and Hager decided that their tequila-mezcal hybrid tasted so good, they should develop the blend and launch a new spirit under the name Santo Puro Mezquila.

While both tequila and mezcal come from the agave plant, tequila is made from just one type of agave (blue agave) and can only be produced in certain regions of Mexico—mainly near the town of Tequila in the state of Jalisco. Mezcal, on the other hand, can be made across the country with different types of agave. Tequila also uses steamed agave, whereas mezcal uses roasted, which is what gives the spirit its smoky flavour.

According to the Santo Puro Mezquila website, Levine and Hagar's drink is a blend of blue agave and Espadin agave, and will be produced in collaboration with Juan Eduardo Nuñez, a third-generation master distiller in Jalisco. Speaking in a press release, Levine said that Mezquila will have "that smooth, full agave, rich tequila flavour with a touch of smoky-sweetness that you can only find with mezcal."

While the Santo Puro Mezquila website also claims that the drink is a world-first, tequila flavoured like mezcal isn't entirely new. Last year, we reported on Humito, a new type of smoked tequila. Although the spirit was a tequila made exclusively with blue agave, its makers claimed it had the smokiness of a strong mezcal.

No word yet on whether Levine and Hagar's spirit will give you moves like Jagger.