San Diego Restaurant Openings

Old Town’s Tahona Opening Mezcal Tasting Room and Bottle Shop in Tijuana

Tahona Tijuana is coming to Calle Sexta

by Mario A. Cortez Jan 27, 2022, 8:56am PST

A bar counter with shelves of mezcal on the wall behind it.

Old Town’s mezcal wonderland Tahona continues to expand its presence in Baja California where it already runs Tahona Baja at Ensenada’s oceanfront development Cuatro Cuatros, offering al fresco dining among the vineyards and mezcal tastings inside converted wooden ships.

Opening this weekend at 8119 Calle Sexta, Tahona Tijuana is a new mezcal tasting room that will be home to a rotating list of over 300 mezcals from 50 makers; Tahona founder and general partner Amar Harrag says the ample bottle lineup is sure to have something for everyone.

“We always want to show people something different, whether the people coming to the tasting room don’t know much about mezcal or even if they are experts and want to have something really special,” he said.

Unlike its Old Town location, which features a full restaurant and cocktail bar experience, the downtown Tijuana outpost will only focus on sips of mezcal. And while there are no current plans to include cocktails, beer, and wine on the menu at Tahona Tijuana at the time, Harrag is looking at the possibility of expanding into other spaces to potentially accommodate such offerings.

Just around the corner at 1248 Avenida Constitucion, bottle shop Tahona Mercado will stock a large selection of agave spirits as well as other items from Mexico, including chocolate sourced from Chiapas and crafts from Mexico’s southern states, and will also serve as the distribution headquarters for the company.

Creating a distribution model was important, Harrag says, as there was previously no direct channel between Tijuana and the mezcal producers of Oaxaca.

“There was no distributor there and nobody really representing the brands so we contacted every one of the makers to get products and to explain to them that we’re opening in Baja,” Harrag explained. “And so the idea came that we needed to create a link between Tijuana and Oaxaca because we believe that there should be a culture of mezcal in this region.”