Mexican Hat Dance

My calendar has 2 recipes for this weekend, the first time thus far this year, I think. Yesterday's was in honor of the Tootsie Roll. Today's is in honor of Mexican Flag Day. What a juxtaposition.

Today's was also my first attempt at a pousse-cafe. I believe it also marks my first time drinking one. In all my years sitting at Chicago bars, I don't think I ever drank one. Budweisers are cheaper.

According to wikipedia, pousse-cafe means "it pushes down the coffee." OK. Whatever. Like a French press? Or the cognac afterwards?

The Mexican flag is a tricolor thing: vertical green, white, and red stripes, with an eagle eating a snake in the middle of the white stripe. It's a long story, or legend, actually.

The drink makes a stab at duplicating the colors. Fortunately no stab at duplicating the eagle or the snake. Still-beating cobra heart is a Tony Bourdain thing. Grenadine first for the red; green creme de menthe for the green; and silver tequila for the white. I've had a bottle of regular tequila forever, but it isn't the right color unless some unhappy fellow pissed on the flag on his way over the border, so I found a bottle of Patron on sale at CVS. I have both a small and a large bottle of creme de menthe - I don't remember why, but I sure wasn't about to buy another, green, one - so I dug out the little teardrop bottles of food coloring. Two squirts, and voila, green creme de menthe.

The alcohol didn't go in in the right order, but I figured the recipe writer knew from experience that the tequila needed to go last for everything to work. Now, a small enough glass to whip up this trifle in. I don't have any juice glasses. My usual glassware is too big. Ah, up on an upper shelf, a miniature A&W root beer mug. Mom found it in her basement and was convinced it's yet another priceless antique. I don't know about that, but it's just the right size. I wonder if you can make a pousse-cafe with A&W? (My favorite root beer since I was a little guy.)

So I pour in a tablespoon of grenadine. Then the food coloring tinkered-with creme de menthe. I was supposed to pour it over a bar spoon to get it to 'float'. I actually used a bar spoon for authenticity. I forgot that my tablespoon measuring mini-cup was magnetized, which created a momentary issue. No yelling or animals diving for sanctuary. But that worked pretty well; the green didn't blend with the red. I could see two layers. Then the tequila on top, avoiding touching the spoon with the measuring thing. Well, the layers didn't settle out quite as distinct from one another, but I could see three, not one big (or small) murky mess.

Downed in one gulp. How was it? I hardly tasted the tequila. For $20 I should taste something. I'm not a big mint taste fan, so I was glad the grenadine went down last. Would I make it again? Ah, probably not. But wikipedia has a recipe that calls for 6, if I ever convince myself to fork out $100 for those two bottles of Chartreuse I still need for my January 3rd drink.