Cinco de Mayo

Start looking for your lost saltshaker. You’ll need it today in Margaritaville.

Margaritas supposedly were named after actress Rita Hayworth, whose real name was Margarita Carmen Cansino. So, much for the folklorico.

Lime is the most popular type of Margarita using this summertime recipe:

3 parts tequila

2 parts orange flavored liqueur (Cointreau, Grand Marnier, Triple Sec or Curacao)

Note: Recommended that only one liqueur at a time be used.

1 part lime juice.

Five of these and you won’t remember what day it is.

An accelerator is called a Tequila Slammer, and for good reason.

Add one part Tequila and one part ginger ale in that order. Hold your hand over the top of the shooter glass; slam it onto a hard surface to mix; drink and shout something in Spanish that sounds painful.

Ginger ale is used because it is consumed for motion sickness, which, after three slammers, you may experience.

If you’re an early riser, the Climatic Prognosticators Association headquartered in Faretudae, California recommends a Tequila Sunrise.

The association’s acting director, Yang Idownagentu, also recommends a Tequila Sunset if you sleep in.

Yang is eagerly anticipating release from the Calabasas Recovery Clinic. A clinic with a reputation equal to the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, the Calabasas Clinic is conveniently located in downtown Calabasas a few steps from the famed Stagecoach Cantina to Yang’s delight.

This is Yang’s personal recipe for a Tequila Sunrise, Sunset:

Pour 1 part Tequila over ice (one cube is more than enough)

Stir with 4 parts orange juice.

Place a drinking straw in a dash of grenadine.

Put your finger over the end and drop the contents into the drink.

Garnish with a slice of orange (Suggested by Yang’s wife, Yin Botumop.)

Yang’s ambivalent about the orange as long as it doesn’t take up space in the glass.

The grenadine will settle to the bottom of the glass giving a "sunrise" effect.

Swiftly go the days, so take one day at a time is Yang’s sober advice. The sunset always looks better through the bottom of a glass he adds.

You shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach. Try this Avocado salsa:

2 ripe California avocados – pitt, peel, dice in that order.

1 ripe California tomato – diced

¼ cup California red onion – diced

2 cloves California garlic – diced

2 TBsp California cilantro – diced

½ tsp cumin

½ tsp black pepper

½ tsp salt

Juice of one California lime

The salsa should definitely satisfy your appetite so you can forego the occasional worm found in your Tequila.

The worm is actually a caterpillar that lived on the agave plant from which Tequila is fermented. (Correction: Mezcal is the booze made from the agave plant. Different agaves create different mescals. Tequila is a mescal made only from the blue agave from Tequila (the city), Jalisco (the state), Mexico. Tequila is to mezcal what Napa Valley is to wine.

Use these indicators when you are buying mescal:

Aged/Anejo: aged for at least a year

Rested/Reposado: aged for more than two months

White/Blanco: aged less than two months or not at all

The worm is an environmental marketing gimmick. Tequila by Mexican law is prohibited from adding the worm. It can be added only by mescals from another Mexican state, which I cannot spell.

Let us not forget cold beer without worms.

Many Mexican beers are brewed in the Old World style from Austria, Germany and France due to the occupation of Mexico by France for several years following Cinco de Mayo.

Most of the Mexican beers you’ll enjoy today use corn with a slightly sweet tone that is subdued by serving the beer very cold.

A slice of lime is usually served with beer. Supposedly it cuts through the lightly sweet corn flavor. Most likely it was first used to wipe away the ever-present Mexican dust on cans and the light ring of rust around the bottle from the cap.

Or, the lime was used to keep flies from crawling around the opening and getting into the beer.

If there’s a worm in Tequila, why not a bottleneck fly in Corona?

It’s Cinco de Mayo. Olé.

Bill Brock can be reached at billebrock@hotmail.com