Rachael, this one's for you....bottoms up!

Making Heads or Tails of the
Myth of the Tequila Worm

We were in church, and we were talking about drinking. Now let me just say that this is a frequent topic of conversation in our Bible Study - hey, we're Methodists, not Baptists - and that the minister brought it up. He was telling us a story about his daddy and moonshine, not that his daddy ever drank it, but he sure was good at making it. Rachael's mind starts going, and she starts talking about tequila, and then she asks, "why does tequila have a worm in it anyway?"
I didn't know what to tell her. It seems like I might have known this at one time but I had forgotten. Must have been all that alcohol killing my brain cells. It seems like I also used to know how to make jello shots and trash can punch, but geez, it's just been so long.
She says, "maybe you could research THAT for a blog entry."
So okay, Mrs Rach, this is what I have learned....

IT IS ALL A MARKETING GIMMICK! Are you surprised?
Somewhere in the 1940s or '50s, an art student named Jacobo Lozarto Paez came up with the idea to start adding a guzano "worm" to his bottles of mescal - a varation of tequila - to make them stand out. The marketing ploy was so effective that the tequila worm has become a North American cultural reference and a false indicator of authenticity of tequila.
A possible reason Paez added a guzano worm (which is actually the caterpillar of a butterfly, or in some cases a type of weevil) as opposed to something else is because the "worm" itself does hold some legendary properties among the Oaxaqueño, whom include the guzano in their native cuisine. It is thought to have magical or aphridisiodic properties, although that well be an urban myth as well.
Some people claim that the worm demonstrates the alcohol content of the liquor, others have a rite of passage involving eating the worm, and our cultural reference these days is that the worm is supposed to come with our bottles of tequila. We have preconceived notions about what the worm says about the liquor, and how the worm makes us feel based on a marketing technique. I think that is very interesting in that respect.
I think about the way I would feel about a friend throwing down a bottle of tequila - we're getting ripped! - and how I would feel if it was mescal, worm floating at the bottom, and she cracks a smile and says, "And tonight we eat the worm."
Freaky. Would you, or wouldn't you?