How I learned to stop worrying and love the agave

by Adrienne Martini

Blessed be the blue agave. This humble succulent has given the world the booze that has inspired poets and troubadours, as well as Pee Wee Herman's big shoe dance. Without the blue agave, there would be no tequila. And without tequila, there would be no margaritas. What, then, would be the point of existence?

Some dedicate themselves to their God, some to country, some to work, and some to family. These are all noble aims. But without the margarita, life would be missing that intangible quality that makes all pursuits fun, in addition to noble.

When you sip this simple drink—and it is meant to be sipped, not slammed like some bitter medicine—you can't help but become a character in a Jimmy Buffet song, drifting along and looking for limes. As you drink, Buffet's calypso rhythms slowly blend into the mariachi music of Mexico; something in your soul finally lets its hair down and starts to salsa. Then you know you understand.

Margarita nirvana is difficult to achieve, at first. It's like meditation. You have to work at it until you organically understand that there is no work involved. But there are guides who know the way. While I cannot call myself a true guru, I have learned some humble tips from others more immersed in this pursuit than I, which I absorbed during my own first 'rita epiphany several years back. But I had this sudden flash of understanding while I was living in Texas, a state full of folks known for their skill with a bottle of tequila. Could such an enlightening experience be had a bit further north, say, in Knoxville? A few weeks ago, I decided it was time to find out.

Before you can truly appreciate this simple beverage, you must understand how tequila comes into being. It all starts with the agave (maguey, in Spanish), a plant that grows in most of Mexico. Varieties of this succulent are used to make liquors throughout the country and each region has its own claim to agave fame. Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, produces Mezcal, a brew with a shady history that is now slowly replacing cognac in more tony circles, according to a slick feature in September's Saveur magazine. Rumors abound about the hallucinogenic and/or aphrodisiac properties of Mezcal and the gusano, the worm that is often floating about the bottom of the bottle.

The agave also produces pulque, a fermented beverage that can be found all over Mexico but tends to be more prevalent in the North. Pulque is the simplest maguey drink and its origins can be traced back to the Aztecs. The long blades of the plant—which looks like a big, mutant aloe—and its flower stalk are hacked off, leaving the pineapple-shaped heart intact. The sap is drained out of the heart and left to ferment. Each local pulque has its own taste, based on the process used to induce fermentation. Some villages simply expose the sap to the natural bacteria in the air, others mix saliva into the barrels. When you visit a pulquerÍa, a local pulque bar, you take your chances.

You don't have to take your chances with tequila, however. The real stuff only comes from four west central Mexican states—primarily Jalisco, but Michoac�n, Nayarit, and Tamaulipas also have the proper growing conditions for the "Weber" or blue agave. According to the normas or Mexican rules for tequila-making, at least 51 percent of the finished liquor must come from the juice of the blue agave, which means

that 49 percent can come from something else, like cane sugar. This adulteration is what has given tequila its tawdry reputation as a harsh drink that has to be disguised with lime and salt. The closer the mix comes to 100 percent agave—and there are at least two makers of this pure elixir—the closer you get to a smooth, palate-pleasing tequila.

Like fine wines, tequila must be aged. The cheap stuff is sloshed about in stainless steel drums for just a few weeks, some of it also then adulterated with caramel or almond flavorings to deepen its color and sweeten its flavor. Tequila reposado has been matured in oak tanks for up to six months, while tequila anejo must have been aged at least a year, but often times between two and 10. Allegedly, the Japanese have discovered a way around this whole time-consuming process and have invented a "tequila extract" that is added to a colorless, flavorless alcohol. This subversion of tradition must be avoided as vigorously as chocolate-flavored chips, imitation vanilla, and orange drink.

These ersatz tequilas are to be shunned even when you are mixing margaritas. While you don't need to shell out for anejo, which should be sipped solo, it is in the 'rita pilgrim's best interest to strive for a bottle that mostly contains fermented agave, given that a real margarita contains little to cover up the taste of a bad tequila—unless you choose to drink those frozen concoctions. A frozen 'rita is generally chock full of a tequila that just barely earns its name and needs as much masking as it can get. If you want a Slurpee, go to the local convenience store. A real margarita consists of nothing more than tequila, some brand of triple sec (usually Cointreau), some lime, and some ice. That's it. That's all.

Discovering the roots of this cocktail is difficult, at best. The margarita seems to have evolved in the same way that fire and the wheel spontaneously took over civilization. There is no Edison of the margarita, although there are many who attempt to claim that title. One such is Francisco "Pancho" Morales, who reportedly created the drink in 1942 in Juarez—just across the U.S. border from El Paso—on, oddly enough, American Independence Day. Morales later moved to the States and became a milkman.

Whenever this story is mentioned, however, many cocktail historians bring up Margarita Sames, who lived in San Antonio. According to the legend, she invented the drink for a Christmas party she threw in Acapulco in 1948. Then there is the California bartender who says he first poured this concoction in the mid-1940s. All of which begs the question—who cares? Thankfully, several someones somewhere, probably in the Southwest states or Mexico, at some point in time, probably in the '40s, lit upon the brilliant idea of mixing tequila with other tart-yet-fruity tastes and shaking it with ice. And then the heavens smiled.

Admittedly, it takes some time to get the hang of quaffing a margarita. Tequila can have a strange effect on the psyche of those who haven't quite mastered the rhythm of drinking it. In fact, I, before I stumbled across the true path, had my fair share of 'rita-induced disasters, culminating in propositioning an acquaintance only to be devastatingly turned down, an occasion that seriously dinged my fragile writer's ego and that would never have occurred if I had stuck to some other type of potent potable, say beer or a nice Chardonnay.

The following morning (well, afternoon), I denounced margaritas as one of the earth's true scourges, fit only to leave a wake of destruction behind their admittedly yummy path. And that, I thought, was the end of that. Then I met my own personal 'rita guru, who showed me the error of my ways on a wrought-iron balcony in San Antonio, during a reception for a new book imprint.

Margaritas swirled about us like jewels, free for the asking. The guru stuck a margarita in my hand, grabbed my elbow, and whirled me out to said balcony, where we absorbed free booze, bonded, and just generally watched the world pass by.

Hours passed, yet neither of us ever achieved a true state of drunkenness. No slurred words, no tequila-induced embarrassments, simply a widened state of consciousness in which ideas and words fell like a gentle rain. In this moment, I had learned the true meaning of margarita. It is a drink to be shared while enjoying the rest of humanity, which sounds broad and sappy but still contains an essential truth, one that I could easily replicate with friends in the bars of Texas.

Then I moved to Knoxville and my sources quickly dried up. Where can one get both the right 'rita atmosphere and a drink that is well-crafted? While I have had some excellent drinks at Mexicali Rose and Don Pablo's, neither place really had the right ambiance to help you subtly hear the rhythm of the 'rita. Besides, both of these establishments are more restaurants than watering holes and the drinks are more accouterments than raison d'�tre. So I gathered up some Metro Pulse compadres, picked a warmish night to stage the quest—you have to be slightly sweaty to truly become one with the experience—and plotted a loose course that would take us from West Knox to the Old City, with four stops in between.

We started at Chez Guevara, the restaurant that was formerly La Paz. Yes, the Chez does specialize in actual food rather than this limey brew, but there is an ample bar and an able tender. The margaritas we sampled were certainly tasty, but we found ourselves screaming at each other, just to be heard over the din of diners waiting for a table. The experience, while pleasing to the palate, did not welcome the establishment of a good, meditative state. After some enchiladas, my compadres and I pressed on.

Which, in hindsight, was foolish. We visited Cozymel's, a popular "Mexican grill" across from West Town Mall. The first thing I spied upon entering was a bank of frozen margarita machines, churning away. Icy fear gripped my heart. Is frozen the only option? For the love of all that is good in the world, please let them have a rocks version of those noxious slushies.

Somehow, in the midst of my panic, I found myself seated at a table, listening to a waiter rattle off the options. A premium pitcher sounded like the way to go, and so we did. Said companions and I were treated to an overly sweet mixture that lacked any real tequila taste. It was a lot like watered-down lime Kool-Aid. A quick trip to the bathroom, which was festooned with "WWJD" graffiti, proved that this was not the proper place for a holy tequila experience. We pressed on.

The next stop left us dejected. Cancun's, while it did have a patio, did not have a drink to die for. Plus, the blasting ranchero music left us once again having to scream to be heard. After working to the bottom of the glass while staring at the lovely billboards of Kingston Pike, despair gripped my heart. I wanted to just give up, call it an evening, and go home to again embrace the pain my culture shock has caused. Oh, thought I, the humanity.

After a few encouraging words and a glass of water, we pressed on, skipping The Strip and all of the drunken co-eds, who are more depressing than the most bleak tequilerÍa. It is genuinely sad to see them simply slam agave juice in some misguided effort to lose their minds. While Charlie Pepper's and/or O'Charley's may make a mean 'rita, it would be anathema to actually enjoy one there if you are too enlightened or too old to really fit in.

Ultimately, we found ourselves at Patrick Sullivan's in the Old City. My now-weary compadres and I bellied up to the bar and ordered a Margarita from barkeep Mark, who is a master with limes and salt. It was served in a pint glass and was the proper shade of light green. And it was good. We found ourselves deep in a conversation that had evolved beyond idle chit-chat while we watched the goings-on in the outside world through Sullivan's big front windows. And that was good as well. While it was not a perfect experience, marred by the lack of a patio and the relative dearth of people out and about, it was pretty darn close. And I had that gradual awareness, induced by the drink, that maybe, just maybe, this would work out after all.