El Portal Restaurant will hold its annual tequila and mezcal tasting from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 10, in the courtyard of its Playhouse Village location at 695 E. Green St. Tickets are $55.
The evening will include music, raffles and bocadillos alongside the pours, El Portal says. The tasting is what the restaurant calls its biggest fiesta of the year, and it lands earlier in the month than the last two editions, which fell on Sept. 12 in 2024 and Sept. 18 in 2025. The tasting has typically coincided with Mexican Independence Day celebrations, which fall on Sept. 16.
The 2024 tasting was billed as offering 32 to 35 tequila producers and possibly three to four mezcal varieties. It drew up to 30 vendors pouring 90 different tequilas for roughly 180 to 190 people, above the 150 anticipated, the organizer said. El Portal’s regular bar lineup carries more than 90 tequilas.
El Portal has used wristbands for designated drivers and controlled serving sizes at the tasting. “People don’t walk out drunk, they don’t over drink,” owner Abel Ramirez said in September 2024.
The Ramirez family has run El Portal on Arcade Lane since April 1995, and the tasting returned in 2022 after a three-year pandemic hiatus. “We are the ones who started the tequila tasting in Pasadena,” said Ramirez, a native of Yucatán who managed the Athenaeum at Caltech before opening the restaurant.
Event: El Portal’s Annual Tequila & Mezcal Tasting. When: Thursday, Sept. 10. Time: 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Cost: $55 per ticket. Where: the courtyard at El Portal Restaurant, 695 E. Green St., Pasadena, CA 91101, in Playhouse Village along Arcade Lane. Parking: on-site at the restaurant. Tickets at exploretock.com/el-portal-restaurant-pasadena/event/617056/el-portals-annual-tequila-tasting. For more, call (626) 795-8553 or visit elportalrestaurant.com.
