By dixie
Once upon a time, far away in a land where the dirt is red, I hung out with people who were far older than I was. This was not because I necessarily had anything in common with them, but more because I found the situation fascinating and they didn’t seem to mind having me around despite the awkward moments when I couldn’t get into a place where they wanted to be and found themselves lacking a designated driver as a result. I learned a lot from these people, mostly through a “that’s what not to do” hermeneutic.
The first lesson I learned from these people was never to drink tequila.
Being a sober teenager (I managed to make it through two full years of college before touching alcohol, though I don’t expect anyone to believe this), I didn’t learn this through personal experience. Rather, I learned it as a logical conclusion drawn from a series of identical stories told from very different people. They all go something like this:
“I was okay until we did the tequila shots…I don’t remember much after that…then I woke up with the worst hangover I’ve ever had.”
The ellipses, obviously, are filled in with personal details that can vary from story to story.
I heard this series of statements many times with a variety of different alcoholic beverages. (Sometimes it was the variety of beverages involved that caused the problem.) Tequila stood out in my mind eventually because it was the only beverage that only had stories like this. No one tells happy tequila stories.
(That’s not completely true. My fairy godmother told happy tequila stories. Another thing I learned from these people was that there’s always an exception, and that while generalizations are good starting places one should never jump straight from one to a conclusion.)
This may be a self-fulfilling thing, as ordinarily sane and rational people will sometimes lose themselves in a moment and decide to break out the tequila at a time when they don’t really need another shot, thus creating a tequila disaster. The pattern remains, however. Tequila, for whatever reason, leads to disaster.
I have never tested this on my own. After the Wanderer’s spectacular hangover following Idaho’s birthday shindig (which did involve tequila, a problem I warned against at the time and was duly ignored over), I don’t really see a reason to try. After a while it becomes less of a wisdom check (”that might not be a good idea”) and more of a straightforward intelligence check based on pattern recognition.
Anyone with a tequila hangover, then, should probably not come to me looking for sympathy.
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17th of October, 2005
Some of the best nights I have been at have had tequila in vast amounts. It’s never been much worse for me than comparable nights with other spirits.
17th of October, 2005
The only time I ever saw a friend end up in hospital was after THREE tequila shots. That’s all. But then everyone else (not me TG) who drank tequila that night threw up massively so I think maybe it was a bad bottle. Or something.
My only happy tequila time was drinking it in massive quantities from a shared bottle (ew) at a house party and giggling all the way home. And then no hangover. Joyous occasion for someone who was once paralysed and sick from 4 pints of beer.
17th of October, 2005
While I have heard many stories of tequila nightmares, I’ve been lucky enough to never suffer them myself, so I still think of it as a friendly drink. Of course I eat the entire lemon - rind and all, so I may be a flawed statistic.
Howandorever, I maintain that Terrorvision got it right - “Tequila - it makes me happy!”
18th of October, 2005
Savage. I blame Savage. “You Bring the Limes” he said.
And the stuff tastes rancid anyway.
19th of October, 2005
Anybody who remembers that party ‘en total’ is a liar. It was great/terrible. Never did get my socks back. Few years ago I polished off a bottle and ate the resident Worm on my last night in the States. If those pictures ever reach this part of the world I’m finished. Good times =).
19th of October, 2005
I agree that tequila in general is a bad thing, but good tequila can be a very good thing. I personally won’t touch tequila unless it’s extremely high quality, and I’ve never had a problem. (Part of the joy of never paying for my own alcohol.) Rum, on the other hand, is a different story….
17th of April, 2006
Alcohol abuse is always a BAD thing, not tequila by itself. Tequila is no stronger, no worse and no more dangerous than any other distilled liquor.
There is NO WORM in tequila, never has been, never will be.
100% agave tequila has fewer cogeners than beer, wine or most other spirits, so it’s LESS likely to cause a hangover than the standard part drink.
Separate the myth from the tequila facts: http://www.ianchadwick.com/tequila.
17th of April, 2006
I have a feeling Ian didn’t actually read the post.
17th of April, 2006
Tequila doesn’t make people drunk, people make people drunk?