Turn the worm.
It’s time to fix tequila’s perception problem.
I’ve discovered something as I try to tell people why tequila is good: Most of their first experiences SUCKED. How you’re expected to drink tequila SUCKS.
Almost universally, it’s on Spring Break, with cheap stuff, drunk to excess. The smell alone, people tell me, is enough to trigger sense memories and make them want to throw up. Shot. Salt. Lime squirt. Wince. Again?
Tequila is the ‘dangerous’ spirit. The one you remember having a worm in the bottle, or the one friends warn you about because you’ll do some crazy stuff, and then you’ll throw up.
The archetype for first ‘tequila’ experiences SUCKS.
Scotch on the other hand…
No one gets hammered at Spring Break off a Macallan and does a wet t-shirt contest (though, I mean — there’s a great idea for something). No one gets an adult to buy them a bottle of it when they’re 16. People graduate UP to Scotch. Like espresso, it fundamentally tastes like garbage when you first try it (even Laphroaig knows this). But it’s a drink you summon the fortitude to like, dammit — if you want to be considered a civilized person.
It’s the drink of culture. It’s the drink of a rare victory — the thing brought out only when the situation merits it. The bottle of ’12 year’ that sits on your dad’s shelf, or your boss’s. If you’re drinking it on a beach, that beach better be covered in lichen and Atlantic sea birds. And stiff upper-lips forbid you mix it with something or add ice (I add ice). Scotch, and even highbrow whisk(e)ys, have built a brand around the right time to experience their drink– much in the same way that champagne has.
Champagne is for weddings and celebrations. For brunch — and what is brunch if not celebrating the fact that you have nothing to do but eat a langorous lunch. Wine is for the intellectual and the foodie. Gin, bourbon and vodka are your workaday liquors and the backbones of our cocktails.
We already know about tequila.
That is to say: the drink is a marker for the experience. And the experiences MATTER. The flavor shock indelibly binds your memory with the drink. Right now, for tequila, that is something most people don’t want to remember. No amount of Hollywood mafia actors will change that.
I refuse to let tequila be about SPRANG BREAK.
The first time I had tequila was a great day. My first San Diego Comic-Con. The media person at my agency managed to get me on the Wired magazine guest list for their private space. A roof top. In the sun, with free Patron and a mixology person pressing margaritas. I had a few. Saw some celebrities (from afar — liquor does not turn me less shy). Enjoyed that sun. It was a magical afternoon.
The second time, years later, was at a friend’s house for a party when the Redbreast ran out — and all that was left was Don Julio, given by her boss and kept in her cupboard because she didn’t drink tequila. So a different friend and I proceeded to get drunk on the couch and critique commercials. I ended up asking that second friend out a month later. And now we’re getting married. The first friend is marrying us. We’ll be having tequila there.
Notice a difference? The drink is fine, it’s how we perceive it that’s not fine.
How we fix it:
First, we have to bind tequila to the drink of a different capstone ‘moment’. Even now, ad campaigns still factor in the sexiness of it, or use celebrities to class it up — but it’s forced. Or they fall back onto the Spring Break sense memories: the 1800 cap doubles as a shot glass!
Second, awareness is almost universally on Silver or Blanco tequila. The clear stuff. Wonderful things happen to tequila when it’s aged. Just like whiskey. Sweet, exotic, and smooth. The clear tequila is essentially the same as moonshine. Unaged (generally), bitter, unyielding. No one drinks moonshine. They drink whiskey aged. Every time I get someone to try an añejo, or even reposado, the process goes something like this:
them: ‘god, no I can’t drink tequila [insert anecdote of getting hammered as shitshow-era adult]’
me: ‘But you like whiskey. Try this, sip it (añejo if I really like them)’
them: ‘wow, this is actually really good.’
Pleasant evening ensues.
Third, stop getting people to shoot it. Sip that shit. Classy, in control, savvy people do not do shots. Shots are called for when courage is needed, when you’re not on your game, or you’re out of your league. That is not luxury. Luxury is mastery.
What could that look like?
Tequila is the drink of friends and beginnings.
I don’t want to truly scrub that archetype of tequila clean, but we can build upon an insight and use that as a dangerous past. Spring Break isn’t just about barfing on a beach. Spring Break is the first time that we step out formally and independently as our own person away from our family, with the family we choose — our friends: Saturdays out, courage before weddings, of 21st birthdays. It’s the drink of extending evenings.
Mark the distinction of gatherings by different tequila types. Shots for your 21st birthday (I can’t fix everything). Anejo for 30th birthday parties. Top for the fourth date — the one where you decide you’re going to try and make something of it.
When you pull the bottle off the shelf, you’ll both know that there’s going to be a fifth date without saying anything.
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