Drinking agave spirits is a special experience, something that isn’t always easy to put into words. The vocabulary that we have isn’t always enough to express the deep reverence and myriad emotions that come with sipping a mezcal that could be wildly different from another one.

The Dictionary Of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig could change that. Koenig has developed new words to express emotions and feelings that we all go through. Here is list of The Agaveist’s favourite words, the definitions, and why they can be applied to drinking agave spirits.

Kairosclerosis

The moment you look around and realise that you’re currently happy – consciously trying to savour the feeling – which prompts your intellect to identify it, pick it apart, and put it into context, where it will slowly dissolve until it’s little more than aftertaste.

This definitely applies to the sensation of drinking a good tequila or mezcal, becoming aware of its awesomeness and then trying to hold on to the fleeting enjoyment of the taste and buzz. And then you repeat with each new sip.

Slipfast

Longing to disappear completely; to melt into a crowd and become invisible, so you can take in the world without having to take part in it – free to wander through conversations without ever leaving footprints, free to dive deep into things without worrying about making a splash.

After a good amount of drinking agave spirits, I feel getting to this sensation is doable.

Licotic

Anxiously excited to introduce a friend to something you think is amazing – a classic album, a favourite restaurant, a TV show they’re lucky enough to watch for the first time – which prompts you to continually poll their face waiting for the inevitable rush of awe, only to cringe when you discover all the work’s flaws shining through for the very first time.

Maybe you’ve felt licotic in the build up to getting your friends to try tequila or mezcal for the first time. And whether it’s down to their preferences or circumstance, they just don’t get it.

That’s okay, though. There is always more for you.

Aubadoir 

The other worldly atmosphere just before 5am, when the bleary melodrama of an extremely late night becomes awkwardly conflated with the industrious fluorescence of a very early morning. 

Agave spirits sure as hell will bring you to this glorious time of the morning.

Wildred

Feeling the haunting solitude of extremely remote places – a clearing in the forest, a windswept field of snow, a rest area in the middle of nowhere – which makes you feel like you’ve just intruded on a conversation that had nothing to do with you, where even the gravel beneath your feet and the trees overhead are holding themselves back to a pointed, inhospitable silence.

Perhaps you’ve felt something similar when moving through a field of agave, or some remote Mexican village where you are a lone foreigner trekking into the unknown. You feel the wildred deep in your bones, an uncertainty of being that sole traveller. And then you find connection in the mezcal and the tequila, the connectivity of appreciating new cultures with friends and new people.

Gobo 

The delirium of having spent all day in an aesthetic frame of mind – watching a beautiful movie, taking photos across the city, getting lost in an art museum – which infuses the world with an aura of meaning, until every crack in the wall becomes a commitment to naturalism, and every rainbow swirling in a puddle feels like choice.

I think it’s all too easy to get into a gobo state of mind when appreciating a wide range of agave spirits on a back bar. The colours of the bottles, the vibrancy of labels. It all seems to swirl together in an expression of Mexico’s greatest aesthetics and cultural icons. 

Trueholding

The act of trying to keep an amazing discovery to yourself, fighting the urge to shout about it from the rooftops because you’re afraid that it’ll end up being diluted and distorted, and will no longer have been created just for you. 

How many times have you discovered a new mezcal and felt the deep rooted sensation that the spirit was made for you and you alone? You feel the paradox of wanting to enjoy your new discovery for as long as you can, while acknowledging that sooner or later you’ll have the overpowering urge to tell somebody else about it and get them to try it.

Because mezcal isn’t meant to be kept secret. It’s meant to be shared with the world, even at the risk of its essence travelling further and further away from its source.

Midding

The tranquil pleasure of being near a gathering but not quite in it – hovering on the perimeter of a campfire, talking quietly outside a party, resting your eyes in the back seat of a car listening to friends chatting up front – feeling blissfully invisible yet still fully included, safe in the knowledge that everyone is together and everyone is okay, with all the thrill of being there without the burden of having to be.

This puts me in mind of being in a bar. You might have wandered in alone for a margarita or Oaxaca old fashioned. Though you are in your own company, you appreciate the couples talking to each other nearby, the random conversations struck up with strangers beside you.

The drinks lull you into the midding tranquility and the rest of the world melts away for that ephemeral moment between savouring the agave spirit and the time it takes you to finish it.

Fata Organa

A flash of real emotion glimpsed in someone sitting across the room – their mind wandering away from whatever’s happening around them, their eyes lighting up with pensiveness or vulnerability or cosmic boredom – as if you could see backstage through a gap in the curtains, watching actors in costume mouthing their lines, fragments of bizarre sets waiting for some other production.

After a few sips of tequila, have you ever felt this fata organa? Like your eyes have suddenly been opened and you become hyper-aware of the people around you? Think about it.

Los vidados 

The half-remembered acquaintances you knew years ago, who you might have forgotten completely if someone hadn’t happened to mention them again – friends of friends, people you once shared classes with, people you heard stories about, who you didn’t know well but who still made up the fabric of your intense little community – making you wonder who else might be out there somewhere, only just remembering that you exist.

How many glasses of mezcal does it take for you to remember the los vidados of your life? The people in the same bar as you when you had a great cocktail. The fellow travellers and transients you interacted with on your travels and who you shared glasses with along the way. 

Lockheartedness

The atmosphere of camaraderie when people are stuck together in a certain place – a stalled lift, a shelter during a storm, the sleeper car of a train – which leaves them no other option but to be present with each other, with nowhere else to go, and nobody else to be.

In these situations, mezcal and tequila are great icebreakers. 

Aftergloom

The pang of loneliness you feel the day after an intensely social event, as the glow of voices and laughter fades into a somber quiet.

This emotion is universal in the aftermath of enjoying good company and mezcal with friends and fellow aficionados. That pang might linger, but it is only temporary. For there will always be more good times ahead.