El Azteco employee Consuela Campbell places a lime on the rim of a margarita glass before taking the glass to a customer on the second level of El Azteco, 225 Ann St., July 24, 2013. July 24th is National Tequila Day, and the restaurant was offering discounted prices on margaritas and tequila. Danyelle Morrow/The State News
It’s a mysterious drink, made strictly in Mexico, associated with throwing knock-outs, colored white, blue, gold and brown and sometimes occupied by worms and scorpions. Wednesday, we celebrated it. We celebrated Tequila.
“I heard a guy say once that a tequila drinker is kind of like a recovering heroin addict — if it’s around, they’ll do it, but they won’t go seeking it out,” James David, bartender at Woody’s Oasis, 211 E. Grand River Ave., said.
David said he rarely serves a single person a shot of tequila, but the shots are a mainstay with high-energy groups like bar crawls.
Josh Smalley, manager at El Azteco, 225 Ann St., explained that mixed tequila drinks are more popular than straight shots.
“On any given week, we probably go through an average of 63 gallons of margaritas,” Smalley said. “Tequila is strong. It’s the good stuff, especially the cheap stuff; it’ll knock you down.”
Mexican-made tequila must be distilled from the succulent plant, blue agave. Berglund said tequila comes from unusal plants with mother nature playing the biggest role on the taste of the drink.
“Tequila is a very traditional drink from a very unusual plant,” Berglund said. “What the land imparts to the product is most important.”
Berglund ranked the traditional drink’s popularity third or fourth among liquors, tied with rum, behind vodka and then whiskey. He said the highest priced bottle of liquor sold in the world was barrel-aged tequila.
“One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor,” the old saying by comedian George Carlin goes. Professor of food science and chemical engineering Kris Berglund explained how he doesn’t believe in the pun that goes with tequila drinks.
“Tequila is an alcoholic beverage, typically 80 proof, and too much of a good thing is never a good thing,” Berglund said. “There’s no real truth behind one tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.”
While some stray away from the challenge, studio art junior Sarah Fagerman said the tequila adage can be, and will be beat.
“I love tequila,” Fagerman said. “It’s always a good time, but one must be cautious. I think you can go past three. My advice is to space it out to keep the tequila fun rolling.”
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