From mole negro and mezcal on family altars to candlelit cemetery vigils and all-night muerteadas, Oaxaca's Día de Muertos brings families together to honor the departed. Local guide Luis Enrique Zárate shares his family's traditions and favorite places to experience the celebration.

From serious tasting rooms and rare agave spirits to inventive cocktails and late-night mezcal bars, these are seven of our favorite places to drink and learn about mezcal in Oaxaca.

Las Chiquihuitas is a relative newcomer to Oaxaca’s organics scene that celebrates its two-year anniversary this month. A tiny sliver of a corner store located right smack-dab in the city’s historic center, the shop manages to pack a surprising amount of organic, local and lovingly produced foods within the diminutive confines of its four walls. A quick examination of Chiquihuitas’ lone refrigerator turns up a candy-colored array of seasonally flavored kombuchas and ginger beers stacked above a selection of buffalo milk butter and cheeses sourced from the Oaxacan coast, plus chunky glass jars of ferments ranging from classic sauerkraut to spicy kimchi. The store’s selection of dry goods might include shiny black beans, sticky, dark-brown blocks of the unprocessed sugar known as panela and jugs of fragrant virgin coconut oil. Happily, there’s a robust lineup of fresh produce, too, with juicy tomatoes, spiky pineapples and nubby potatoes peeking out of the black plastic crates dominating one of the store’s shelving units.