Micheladas and Cubanas

Well, time got away from me today – I was going to publish my final post on our trip to Mexico at around lunchtime, but then a bunch of other things came up and now the clock is striking 6pm. That final post will have to wait until tomorrow, but I’m still going to throw in a mini-post about one of my favourite Mexican treats: Micheladas and even better, Cubanas.

According to Wikipedia, the exact ingredients and definitions of a Michelada vary according to your location in Mexico, but in general we are talking about a beer mixed with lime juice, served in a salt/chilli-rimmed glass. Then a bunch of other extras are optionally added such as clamato (tomato juice with clam broth), chilli powder, Worcestershire sauce, Maggi sauce. The Cubana variation (which ended up being our favourite) tended to have loads of extra chilli sauce and extra spices and seasoning.

All this backs up the point I made in the previous post about peanuts – why have a boring old beer when you can have a spicy, sour, salty beer instead? Here were a few of our Michelada / Cubana highlights:

I call this one Michelada Sunrise. Looked pretty cool, but tasted better once I’d stirred it up with a straw. From Coox Hanal.

A Cubana made with the perfectly decent Victoria beer. This was at Cantina Tio Pepe in Mexico City.

Confession time: this one was actually a bit too much. If they overdo the spices, you just end up wanting a drink of water afterwards. This was from a small bar in Oaxaca.

I liked the way they had the chilli sauce still smeared around the inside of the glass like that. Nice touch. This was at El Hidalguese in Mexico City.

I wonder why it is that Mexicans seem to desire/require such strong, spicy, zingy flavours while Brazilians (and many other nations) seem to prefer milder flavours and dishes. Is there some historical explanation? Anyway, I’ll be back around lunchtime tomorrow to wrap up this Mexican trip. Then we can get back to good old Rio!