Ole, Monsieur...

I'm sure you already know this, but the cross cultural drinking game we call "Cinco de Mayo" is a regional holiday in Mexico that celebrates the defeat of the French by the Mexicans at the Battle of Puebla in 1862.

This severely pissed off the French, since that Bonaparte guy wanted his cousin Max to have his own country, so about a year later the French showed up with five times as many troops and kicked some Mexican butt. Archduke Maximilian was then installed as the ruler of all Mexico...lasted about three years. Realizing that old Max would probably shift the alchohol producing regions from cacti to grapes, thereby screwing up the supply of Mezcal and Tequila into the United States, the Americans decided that god wanted Max dead. They sent money and mercenaries and so Napolean's Cousin Max's shirt wound up in a Mexican museum, so everyone can go look at all the bullet holes in it.

Bummer for cousin Max, but hey, he's famous, right?

See...The US government had recently taken over by early republicans during the rein of Lincoln, and they wisely forsaw the need for cheap labor coming up 150 years later as well as the need to consolidate the takeover of Texas and California. (A bunch of Tennessee natives led by Sam Houston were involved in some of this and some even wound up with their names on the Alamo wall as dead people.)

See...If some Austrian French guy managed to organize the Mexicans, he might realize that California and Texas were gonna have a bunch of oil wells in a hundred years and want them back. Nothing scares any world leader more than the thought of a bunch of French Oil barons controlling the world, so they decided to save it for the Saudis.

So "Cinco de Mayo" is like the Mexican version of celebrating something like the time cousin Bevis poked the bull with the pitchfork and laughed about it as he ran off but the bull caught up with him later on and stomped him into a cow pie.

So today we party!...And Just so's you and your friends can join in the celebration and get stomped yourselves, here is a fun thing to do:

Get some limes. The big fresh ones are best.

Squeeze a bunch of them into juice but keep a lime wedge to wipe around the glass to make the salt stick.

Wipe a lime wedge around the edge of a glass to make the salt stick.

Put salt in a saucer and smush the rim of the glass into it.

Pour equal parts, Tequila, lime juice, and Triple Sec into the glass.

Add ice and test...

Adjust recipe and test again...Note: It rarely needs more Triple sec...(whatever that is...)

Repeat...

Hide your car keys so that you will not find them for 24 hours and continue research and development and you'll soon find yourself stomped in the fine tradition of the Mexican French.

Cheers,

Steve



Just in case you still want to know more about General Zaragoza:

Ole