The Los Angeles producer pairs the debut with a New York distribution deal, aiming at bars and restaurants that don’t hold a full liquor license.
Los Angeles-based Ola Sol announced on October 7 the launch of Humo, which the company describes as the first 100% agave wine built around the smoky character of traditional mezcal. Humo is available now at olasol.com and wholesale in California and New York, where Ola Sol has also signed a distribution agreement with Union Beer/Blueprint Spirits.
How Humo is made
According to Ola Sol, Humo is made entirely from Espadín agave grown on a single estate in Oaxaca and fortified with mezcal brandy distilled from that same agave. The result, the company says, is a spirit-forward smoke profile inside a wine classification.
The brandy starts with six-year-old Espadín agave, which is cooked for roughly five days in underground earthen ovens, crushed on a tahona mill, fermented naturally for about 15 days and distilled in copper pot stills. Ola Sol says the smoke is not added: it comes from the earthen-oven cook and carries through into the finished wine. The agave is dry-farmed on rainfall alone, with no irrigation.
| Agave | 100% Espadín, single estate, grown in Oaxaca |
| Classification | Wine, fortified with mezcal brandy distilled from the same agave |
| Strength | 24% alc./vol. |
| Size | 750 mL |
| Calories | 45 per 1 fl oz serving |
| Additives | None |
| Certification | Kosher, certified by Aleph Kosher |
| Availability | olasol.com; wholesale in California and New York |
Why the wine classification matters
Ola Sol’s pitch centers on licensing. The company cites California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control counts from June 2026 showing nearly 27,000 active Type 41 and Type 42 licenses in the state, and says more than 5,000 New York establishments hold Restaurant Wine licenses. Venues with those licenses cannot legally pour tequila or mezcal, the company says, but they can pour Humo, and with it make drinks such as Oaxaca old fashioneds, mezcal negronis and mezcalitas.
Alexis Beechen, CEO and co-founder of Ola Sol, said drinkers move toward darker, fuller cocktails as the seasons change, and that many bars are legally unable to serve the mezcal drinks their guests ask for. Because Humo gets its smoke from earthen-oven-cooked Espadín, she said, it “behaves like mezcal in a glass rather than imitating it.”
To be clear, Humo is sold as a wine, not as mezcal.
The mezcal backdrop
Humo’s agave and region are the backbone of the mezcal category. The Agave Today Market Report 2027 puts Espadín at 84.5% of mezcal production and notes that Oaxaca has historically accounted for roughly 90% of output.
The category is smaller than tequila but growing on analysts’ projections. Estimates cited in the report put the global mezcal market at $0.65 to $0.71 billion in 2026, rising to about $1.1 billion by 2031, with the US mezcal market at $390 million in 2024. Production has been volatile: Mexican mezcal output fell almost 40% in 2025 to 6.9 million liters, according to COMERCAM data summarized in the report. Bottled volume sold that year reached 10.6 million liters, more than was produced, which the report reads as an inventory-led adjustment rather than a collapse in demand.
The report also underscores why on-premise accounts matter to a product like Humo. Bars and restaurants account for roughly two-thirds of global mezcal sales (about 68%, an industry estimate), and the report describes mezcal as still primarily discovered on-premise, with bartenders driving education and trial.
The wider agave market that Humo is entering is in a correction. US tequila and mezcal revenue fell 4.1% to $6.4 billion in 2025, the first annual revenue decline in more than a decade, and the report concludes that growth now comes from winning share rather than from category expansion. Spirits-based ready-to-drink cocktails were the exception, growing 16.4% to $3.8 billion; Ola Sol’s portfolio includes ready-to-drink margarita formats. The report does not assess Ola Sol or Humo.
Union Beer partnership in New York
The Union Beer/Blueprint Spirits agreement puts the entire Ola Sol portfolio in front of what the company calls one of New York’s largest on-premise account bases.
Oscar Delgado, Wine and Spirits Manager at Blueprint Spirits, said the partnership lets the distributor serve accounts holding beer-and-wine licenses with “an elevated, high-quality cocktail base.” He added that Ola Sol holds a competitive advantage in an underserved segment, giving Blueprint’s sales representatives a chance to keep growing market share.
About Ola Sol
Ola Sol is a Los Angeles-based agave wine producer founded in 2024. The company makes 100% agave wines that carry the character of tequila and mezcal within a wine classification, so bars, restaurants and retailers without a full liquor license can serve agave cocktails. Its flagship blanco, made from Blue Weber agave grown in Jalisco, holds a 93-point rating from Wine Enthusiast. The portfolio also includes Humo and ready-to-drink margarita formats, all kosher certified, vegan, gluten free and made without additives. Ola Sol is sold in more than 500 restaurants and retailers across California, New Jersey and New York, and at olasol.com.
Sources: Ola Sol press release dated October 7, 2026 (distributed via BevNET); Agave Today Market Report 2027 (Part I, sections 2 and 5; Part II, sections 1 and 4). Product, licensing and sales details are company statements and have not been independently verified.