Mezcal And Me

And the worm...

I've recently gotten into the distilled alcoholic agave beverage Mezcal.  I mentioned this fact to my cool neighbor who lives across the street (as we often ask each other "Drinking anything good lately?") and he said he was going to see if he had any in the house, as he was sure he had an old bottle.  He mentioned it might have a worm in it.   

Now, growing up as a boy, you always heard about a worm in a bottle of booze.  Heard it was in a certain kind of booze.  I heard it was Tequila.  But Mezcal (Tequila's smokey smooth brother) is where that worm resides.  Sloshing around in the cool tincture... slosh slosh slosh (ripping off Bradbury's THE JAR here).  We'd all say "I'd drink it!  I'd eat the worm!"

So later that day I hear a knock at my door, and my neighbor is standing out there. Holding a bottle.  I laugh and let him in and he holds up the bottle and says, "You have to drink the worm!"  And I say "I WILL! I've wanted to my entire life! I'm a MAAA....."  ...and then I see the worm.  The size of a human pinky.  I was expecting a small meal worm to make me feel manly.  We used to feed those to our reptiles as kids and you get really used to them.  So swallowing one in a shot of Mezcal seemed feasible (but still unsettling).  

But a plump juicy maguey worm is another story.  My neighbor saw the look of horror and said "Aw, Come on!  Just swallow half of it!"  That's half the size of a human pinky.  I retorted "Why haven't YOU yet if it's so easy?!!"  We laughed and then he left the bottle with me.  To ruminate. 

No way.  No how.