Bud Light + Clamato = Chelada?
Continuing on our gross drinks theme, I give you Chelada. Because mixing Clams and Tomatoes wasn’t already a hideous enough idea. Beer Advocate rated this beverage a “D.” Though it should be noted that the rating was based on Budweiser and Clamato. Perhaps mixing Clamato with Bud Light, thus making it healthier, ups the rating.
I can only guess that this beverage was born thusly:
Two guys were bored in a bar and began daring each other to drink just plain ol’ Clamato. Naturally both men balked at the repulsive dare and opted instead for a “truth.” But men aren’t good at secrets so their “truths” only bored them further.
Then the first guy offers, “Man, I’d have to be crazy stinko to try Clamato.” Guy One was a fan of mixing old-timey and new-timey slang together.
Guy number two pondered this for a bit and then revised his original dare. “Okay, but could you drink Clamato if you were getting mad hammered while you drank it?” He raised his eyebrows up and down for extra convincing.
Guy One, already being a bit tipsy and not being able to reason things out fully, was intrigued by this counter-proposal. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I could do it then. It couldn’t be worse than HARD Creamer, right?”
The two men quickly concocted an elixir of Clamato and Bud Light giddy at the prospect of forging new alcoholic fontiers. Guy One picked up the mug, said a small prayer, blinked a few times, exhaled, and in an unfounded feat of dexterity, both downed the beverage and vomited it all back up at the same time.
Guy Two exclaimed, “GROSS!” because it really was super gross. Then seeing the bio-mess asked, “What did you last eat?”
Guy One tried to say “enchiladas,” but the mix of awful flavors in his mouth cause him to choke a bit and all that sputtered out was, “chilada.”
Guy Two got the bartenders attention. “Barkeep…another round of Cheladas.” Americans are good at goofing up words from other languages.
Obviously, the makers of Bud Light are tickled by the popularity of their terrible beer and figure that if people will drink it by itself, surely they’ll drink it with other crap mixed in. Currently in R&D are “Techronixx” (gasoline), “Costa del Sol” (sewage – maybe a “find the syringe” promo), and “Double Outrage” (Pepsi). The future is bright.
I’m happy to see national and ethnic prejudices run deep in advertising. The “Bud Light and Clamato” half of the can reflects the Puritanical and straight-laced target audience of the beer-drinking American whose wife has been nagging him about adding more vegetables to his diet. The lower half of the can targets the fiery Latino who is looking for extra kick added to his cerveza with red, flames, and an exciting font. Have I watched too much “Mad Men”?
As a fan of Mr. Hamm, I decree that no one can watch too much Mad Men.
I haven’t commented in a long while but this is an issue I feel I need to get off my chest.
One, I fully back up your Hamm fandom.
And I think this beer sounds vile. I was made aware of its existence when I was on a walk with Jeremy in the Bay Area over the holidays. We were just walking down the street and came across a whole bag of discarded Chelada cans. Not only did someone drink a whole lot of this terrible drink but then they littered. And on top of that, they failed to recycle. I don’t even want to share the Earth with people like that.
And what makes this product need a Latin name anyway. Have Latino people long been combining veggies, clams and alcohol?
And shouldn’t its combined name be more like budlamato?
Now that you point out Clamadweiser’s core, veggies, clams and alcohol, I wonder if it was an experiment (albeit, a misguided, drunken experiment) to get a full meal into a can. Meat, two veg and a beer. Even if that were true, it still should not have made it past the “home-prototype” phase.
On a separate topic, look at all those Hamm fans! What does one call the fans of Hamm? Famms? Hamnatics? Fans Over My Hammy? The Happy Hamms Club?
Loving Hammhocks!