A happy Cinco de Mayo to everyone today. We suggest celebrating this holiday in any of these three ways:
1. Listening to the excellent mariachi covers of Mexico’s Mariachi Rock-O, like their take on Morrissey’s “Everyday is Like Sunday” or Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry”, both below;
2. Traveling back in time a few days and making this habenero-infused tequila from our 2009 recipe—it makes for some of the best, most adventurous margarita-drinking ever; and
3. Actually learning what we’re celebrating with Cinco de Mayo. Not to talk down to anyone—we’d barely known ourselves until recent years—but we are not, in fact, celebrating Mexican Independence Day; that’s in September.
What’s actually being commemorated is the May 5th Battle of Puebla, during the French “Intervention” in Mexico, when Mexican forces very unexpectedly defeated a much larger, better-equipped French Army. The French eventually went on to overpower the Mexican people in subsequent battles, but that little glimmer of hope—the underdog in the fight—that’s what we’re celebrating. That and, more importantly and broadly, Mexican heritage and how it plays into our lives here in LA and elsewhere.
Who can’t get behind that?
I guess the French, maybe. Everyone else—happy Cinco de Mayo to you!
Art by Danny Martin.
