National Tequila Day: The Ancient Tequila Arts of Montezuma (1974)

Happy National Tequila Day!

In 1974, Montezuma Tequila released a series of magazine advertisements based around the Aztec calendar, which they called The Ancient Tequila Arts of Montezuma.

This ancient calendar, called the Sun Stone, has an inner ring of twenty symbols, one for each day of the Aztec week. These symbols also suggests what kind of drink might be appropriate for each day’s celebration.

Now, I don’t know how accurate these ads are, whether tequila existed back in the time of the Aztecs or if there were 20 days in the Aztec calendar, but the Montezuma people did think up twenty different Ancient Tequila Arts recipes. So for National Tequila Day, I decided to take these Aztec recipes for a spin.

I selected this version of the ad:

So many good choices! But I guess I was feeling a little ambitious– I decided to make not one–not two–but all five cocktails!

For the Caramba I used agave instead of sugar because the agave is right there in my cabinet and the sugar is on a shelf way way up. And I didn’t want to have to climb up a step stool to get it. So agave it was. Anyway! I like grapefruit juice. And this was fine, but I feel like grapefruit is a better match to vodka. This has been well-documented on the DiS1972 blog. (See: Salty Dog  and Smirnoff Sunstroke).

The Tequila Pina! OK, Summer! I love this. I don’t like rum, as in a traditional Pina Colado, so this is a fabulous alterative. It basically just tastes like pineapple juice. Or whatever weird pineapple nectar like beverage that I picked up in the Latin American section of the grocery store.

The Tequila Pup! This is a tequila Bee’s Knees—lime and tequila instead of lemon and vodka. The honey is the common ingredient. Not bad.

It’s an Earthquake! It’s gonna get the party shaking!

OK, look at that recipe–the 3/4 an ounce of strawberries. That has to be wrong, no? Well, I made an executive decision and switched it ton 3/4 a cup of fresh strawberries. Oddly, even with upping the amounts, it wasn’t particularly strawberry-y. The grenadine didn’t do much–maybe just make it rosier in color. This was icy and chunky and mostly tasted of just tequila. Odd.

Ah, the Mexican Martini–inspired by the elegant Jaguar. So how do you like my background?

I am absolutely flummoxed by the Mexican Martini.

1.  Why would you do this?
2. How does it taste NOTHING like tequila? Nor vanilla. Nor vermouth.

I don’t want to say that it is BAD, but I have no interest in the rest of it.
No, it is bad. I actually dumped it. Which is nuts. Because I am of the “no liquor left behind” school.

I am exhausted after 5 cocktails.

1 tequila, 2 tequila, 3 tequila, FLOOR.