Agua Magica and Aldo Sohm release a mezcal aged in TBA dessert wine barrels

Agua Magica has released a limited-edition reposado mezcal made with Aldo Sohm, the wine director at New York's Le Bernadin. Called Reposado Edición Limitada, the spirit aged in oak that previously held Trockenbeerenauslese, a sweet Austrian dessert wine, for one of the year's more unusual maturation paths.

The run is just 750 bottles at a suggested $250 each. Agua Magica was founded in 2021 by Rafael Shin and Rogelio Juan Hernández, a fifth-generation maestro mezcalero, and the Sohm collaboration began in 2024. The brand says the bottles reach retailers now, with fans pushed toward specialty shops and the brand site.

Hernández produced this release too, though the agave mix changes from the core expression. The limited reposado uses 66.6 percent espadín and 33.4 percent tepeztate, cooked in a conical stone oven and milled on a tahona. Fermentation ran 10 days in pinewood vats with wild yeast, then double distillation in copper pot stills.

The barrel step is where the Sohm partnership shows. The mezcal aged eight months in an underground cellar inside Caucasian oak, also called Russian oak, that previously matured Trockenbeerenauslese from Sohm & Kracher, the sommelier's own wine label. The TBA here is a cuvée of Chardonnay and Welschriesling, an Austrian white, so the barrel held a wine both rich and aromatic.

After the barrels, the spirit rested a further nine months in glass to let the flavors marry. That waiting period is part of why the result drinks differently from a standard reposado: the sweet-wine wood carries through, and the brand describes a finish layered with honey, berry, caramel and baking spice over the agave.

Agua Magica holds itself to a few fixed rules. Wild yeast, not industrial, drives the fermentation. No additives touch the flavor or color, no sugar is added, and volume targets are ignored to keep batches genuinely small. Hernández produces in Oaxaca beside his son Julio Juan.

The core ensamble is proof the approach works. That expression blends seven- and 15-year-old espadín and tobalá agaves from San Juan del Rio, with a subtle smoke that stays behind the palate rather than overwhelming it. The new reposado swaps that formula for the espadín and tepeztate mix.

Sohm is best known as a name in wine, which is what makes his mezcal barrel choice count. Trockenbeerenauslese, shortened to TBA, is a late-harvest Austrian dessert wine built on botrytis, and its barrels carry a sweetness few mezcal makers reach for. The result is a spirit with two voices.

Neat is the pick. Agua Magica recommends a rocks glass to pull the agave forward, and a cordial glass to lift the flavors the barrel aging added: citrus, soft smoke and grass underneath honey and caramel on top. The glass changes what the drinker finds, and the brand leans into that.

This is not a mezcal for cocktail dilution. The price is well above the entry mezcals crowding shelves, and at 750 bottles the release will not restock. Collectors and spirit-focused drinkers are the audience, though the brand frames it as a sipper rather than an investment bottle.

What the barrel choice means

Mezcal barrels usually come from bourbon or tequila. A TBA barrel is a deliberate departure, and it pulls the spirit toward dessert territory without sugar. Agua Magica adds no sweetener, so every caramel and berry note traces back to the wood and the wine it once held rather than to an additive.

The glass rest is the part most buyers never see on a label, and it is the stage where the barrel and agave notes settle together.

Caucasian oak is rare in spirits. Most American and European distillers work with white or French oak, and its grain behaves differently, imparting flavor more slowly and, in this case, carrying over the residual sweetness of a botrytized dessert wine. That is the detail a sommeliere would notice, and Sohm chose it.

For a wine director, the cuvée matters. What lingered after the wine moved out is what the mezcal picked up during its eight months underground.

The partnership makes Agua Magica more visible well beyond mezcal circles. Le Bernadin has held three Michelin stars for years, and Sohm's name reaches a dining audience that might never open a mezcal bar menu. A collaboration like this pulls agave spirits into white-tablecloth territory.

How the limited run comes together

Oaxaca production stays the constant. The agaves are cooked, milled, fermented and double distilled by the Hernández family, and the barrel choice is layered on after. Rogelio Juan Hernández's fifth-generation craft anchors the spirit, while the Sohm barrels supply the twist that makes this edition read as a collaboration.

No second batch is announced. Agua Magica directs buyers to local specialty retailers or its own website, so the practical route is to order early or find a shop that carried the first, broader core release.