It’s been over three months since I’ve had a Mexican Beer served up Los Arcos style. The heat of the summer has droned on, my garden work has been accomplished, and I’ve traveled to England’s pub-land and back again. Not one beer.
Why? Because once you’ve had a Mexican Beer from the Los Arcos cantina, there’s just no going back.
It’s worth a three month wait.
Oh sure…if someone has not experienced this end-of-a-long-week beverage before, they might protest: “It’s like any other Mexican Beer! Same salt…same lime pulp…same cold mugs…heck, I make ’em that way at home!”
Nope. If your coldest mug is ice cold…theirs is stick-to-your-frost-bitten fingers colder. If your beer is chilled down nicely before being poured into a mug, they win by at least two to five degrees lower every time.
Their salt is perfect and their lime pulp is more liberal than any other place I’ve found. And, may I be stuck with a massive prickly pear cactus if this isn’t true…there’s a little tiny bit of magic at Los Arcos they mix into the mugs before you are served these treats.
Maybe the bar tender adds something under the counter out of the customer’s line of sight. Maybe it’s the special way the waiter shaves his beard. He sports a precision-shaved chin strap and really likes his new whisker style. The waiter theory is plausible simply because I think he elevates his customer’s moods by his personality. He shakes your hand, asks how you’ve been, and when he brings in the trays of food and drinks, he sets them HARD down on the table and says merrily, “LOOK at THAT!”
My husband disagrees with the “waiter theory” because we’ve been there before and the chin-strap dude was no where to be found.
A month back when I was in an Oxford pub with students and faculty, I got strange looks when I ordered club soda with lime. “Don’t you want a beer?” they asked, holding their room temperature, dark European brew.
“No thank you,” I replied.
It’s not the same. I don’t care if beer connoisseurs try to teach me about bitters, German brews, blah-ditty-blah-blah whatevers. These details don’t matter to me. Los Arcos wins my unofficial Mexican Beer contest of the entire universe.
See you there in another month or two. Viva Los Lime & Salt!
