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Gulp!
Swallowing the mezcal worm is hardly a trip to remember.
The mezcal worm is the stuff of barroom legend. Initially considered a pest because it burrows into the core of the agave plant from which mezcal is made, the worm first showed up in bottles in 1950 as a marketing ploy. It worked. Mezcal sales shot up as many came to believe rumors that consumption of the creature could induce pleasurable hallucinations. So as TOC’s begrudging resident insect-eater (if you don’t recall the time I ingested a live Madagascar hissing cockroach, well, I sure do), it became my charge to test this mezcal myth. The pale, pickled, one-and-a-half–inch agave worm that floated in my bottle of Monte Alban Con Gusano (con gusano means “with worm”) mezcal looked nauseating, but shooting the slimy bugger with the smoky, 80-proof mezcal wasn’t as wretched as I’d expected. In the end, the worm did not “unlock the door to a world of wondrous experience,” as the bottle’s tag touted, but happily it didn’t unlock the door to my undigested lunch, either. Sam’s Wines & Spirits (1720 N Marcey St, 312-664-4394); $22.99.
