Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: Budweiser Chelada

A wise man once said, "she looks better in clothes than most women do naked."

According to Wikipedia, Cinco de Mayo represents the “fifth of May.”  I know you college types scoff and turn your noses up at Wikipedia, but I translated Cinco de Mayo on google and it all checks out.  Put that in your this is not a pipes and smoke it (most pretentious joke in the history of my blog.)  I always thought Cinco de Mayo commemorated some sort of revolution and the assassination of General Mapache by Ernest Borgnine and William Holden.  Whatever the case may be, Cinco de Mayo is a holiday I celebrate every year by putting on a sombrero and get shitfaced.  This year, I’ll be trying out Budweiser Chelada.

Salma Hayek is shocked by my keen insights

To regular followers of my blog it may seem ironic that despite my dedication to finding pictures of  hot babes vaguely related to whatever shitty beer I’m writing about, I refuse to do even a cursory search into the so-called  “true meaning” of Cinco de Mayo.  I have however bought a beer marketed towards Mexican Americans, and as I sip it down I have determined that drinking is the true meaning of Cinco de Mayo.  Think about it, turning an ethnic holiday into an interethnic drinking holiday is the greatest sign of acceptance our country can show.  It wasn’t too long ago that everyone hated Indians, and now we all celebrate Thanksgiving.  As a sign of racial tolerance (and not alcoholism) I have personally gotten drunk on Boxing Day, Purim, MLK day, and Australian Labour Day.  I will admit that I wasn’t specifically celebrating every single holiday I just named, but I got drunk on all of those holidays so it’s a start. 

A few years ago, celebrating the Feast of St. Patrick

I chose Budweiser Chelada for my Cinco de Mayo celebration because the display at the store had one of those weird upside down exclamation points.  At first I thought it was just a giant lowercase “i” but that would be stupid.  An inverted exclamation point is a sure sign of Spanishness or at least a clear sign that something is being marketed towards Spanish speaking people.  A closer inspection of the can confirmed my suspicion, like a flea-market marital-aid, it was mostly in Spanish with English added only as an afterthought.  Christ, Corona bottles are in English.  I speak about as much Spanish as the Terminator, but I was able to figure out that Chelada is a mixture of Budweiser and Clamato.

Los Bulls are on in the background.

To most people that sounds kind of disgusting, not to mention counter-intuitive.  Why would someone market a strange concoction?  Well it turns out that similar drinks are popular across Latin America.  Personally, I love bloody marys.  They’re tasty and socially acceptable to drink before noon.  Needless to say I was kind of excited about trying another tomato drink with booze in it.  Chelada is 5% alcohol so it might not have as much alcohol as a Dan-style double bloody mary, but it’s certainly not as wimpy as Keystone Light’s 4.2%.  The can also boasts that Chelada contains salt and lime la combinacion perfecta.

Is it perfecta?  Well after my first sip I was inclined to say “hell yes,” but as I worked my way down the 24 oz can I was more inclined to say “not really.”  It tasted kind of like a carbonated bloody mary with chili powder, a whole tallboy of the stuff was a bit much.  Granted I can suck down bloody marys like there’s no tomorrow, and the only thing that stops me from drinking 4 in a row is how much work goes into mixing each one.  I think that’s part of the problem.  The whole time I was drinking Chelada I kept thinking it would have been better served over ice with a squirt of fresh lime, some hot sauce, and black pepper. 

A mini-van?  What the fuck?

On its own, Chelada was okay, but with a little bit of extras I think it could have been better.  Unfortunately, I had a hard deadline of May 5^th this week and only bought myself one tallboy.  Fortunately for you and me there’s Bud Light Chelada and I’ll be able to write another similar but more experimental review in the future.  In the mean time, buy some Chelada or Steel Reserve or whatever you like and take the time to improve race relations by getting drunk on Cinco de Mayo.

As if to prove my point Salma Hayek celebrates Oktoberfest