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RECIPE: Micheladas "To Taste"
A Michelada is like a Bloody Mary - minus the hard liquor. A beertail, if you will.
And the best part of a Michelada is that you can write the recipe - I'll just lay the base.
A Michelada is like a Bloody Mary - minus the hard liquor. A beertail, if you will.
And the best part of a Michelada is that you can write the recipe - I'll just lay the base. Allow me to explain - a Michelada is a beer fortifified with tomato juice, lime, chile and flavorings and YOU get to pick the proportions. Want something more spicy? Just add more chili pequin or arbol to the rim.. want something more sour? Add more lime. ETC.
Ingredients:
*For one serving. All ingredients to taste.
MICHELADA
10 Chili pequin or 3 chili de arbol toasted on a comal until fragrant OR Sal de Muchos Chiles Rimming Salt
Lime juice to taste
2 ounces Tomato juice
2 Dashes of Worcestershire
Salt
Hot sauce (like Valentina of Cholula) to taste
1 12-ounce bottle of Mexican Lager (claro or obscuro is fine)
Method:
Place glassware into the freezer for at least ten minutes.
Toast the chili pequin or arbol on a comal until fragrant. Once cooled, chop into a fine powder with a pinch of salt.
Squeeze lime juice onto a plate, dip the frozen glass rim into the lime juice and then the chili powder to rim the edge.
Remove the glass from the freezer. Add tomato juice, lime, Worcestershire, hot sauce and stir the mixture well. This should equal approx. 1/3 of the volume of the drink. Add ice cubes 3/4 of the way up the glass.
Pour the lager over the ice cubes and stir the drink to blend both layers. You will have beer leftover which is the best part of a Michelada, it changes flavor and consistency as you continue to dilute the tomato mix with the beer.
BOOK REVIEW: The Mezcal Rush - Explorations in Agave Country by Granville Greene
Granville Green's The Mezcal Rush: Explorations in Agave Country captures his journey into the often misunderstood alcoholic beverage native to Mexico. Published this year, the 286 page exploration follows Greene's personal journey with the intoxicant that he once drank in his college days known as "the drink with the worm in it," to the esteemed cultural heritage that makes mezcal the fashionable drink it is today.
Nothing plays the symphony of smoke quite like mezcal, and Granville Green's The Mezcal Rush: Explorations in Agave Country captures his journey into the often misunderstood alcoholic beverage native to Mexico. Published this year, the 286 page exploration follows Greene's personal journey with the intoxicant that he once drank in his college days known as "the drink with the worm in it," to the esteemed cultural heritage that makes mezcal the fashionable drink it is today.
After sampling a bottle of Del Maguey in a Santa Fe wine shop, Greene was intrigued to know more about the complex spirit he drank. "It was just completely different from anything I'd ever tasted, and I felt like it was telling me a story, but in an unfamiliar language," Greene writes. Ron Cooper's Del Maguey has become a commonality in the American market. A true pioneer, Cooper has acted as a middleman, importing "single village" mezcal to the US market with bottle prices well above $150 USD. Del Maguey sparked a lust for Greene to travel to Oaxaca and Guerrero to study the complexities of the spirit.
"I consumed a traditionally produced alcoholic spirit that was a thread in someone else's communal web, I was somehow connected to that community myself..." pg. 192
Granville Greene, pg. 192
From Greene's findings he explains that tequila is simply a type of mezcal but ONLY from the blue agave A. tequiliana variety. The pina, or heart of the plant, is steamed not smoked in a earthen pit and eventually fermented and then distilled. Mezcal can be made from not just the blue agave, but from 30 varieties of agave! The complexity doesn't stop there - similar to a terroir, mezcal production can be nuanced by the type of soil it is grown in, which yeasts from the surrounding plants affect the flavor, what type of still is used to ferment it... the list goes on and on.
Greene's most impactful take-away for me was the sustainability of the entire production of the spirit. As "entrepreneurs" like Ron Cooper continue to claim the artistry of the maestros mezcaleros as their own, the communities who need mezcal to survive will not be properly compensated. The greed for mass production in the tequila industry is allowing big business to steal espadin plants in unregulated Oaxaca and Guerrero. Smaller communities cannot afford the expenses associated with the DOC and will never be able to market nor export their product.
The Mezcal Rush: Explorations in Agave Country was a special read which does the mezcal industry justice and will make me think twice before picking up a bottle of Ron Cooper's Del Maguey products, or at least make me think of the mezcalero who produced it.
Buy the book here.