The Great Mezcal Coverup (Drive Day 30 minus 14 years)

Posted on July 30, 2017 Updated on May 29, 2017

Say hello to Martin Garcia. He’s the reason Gary is not spending tonight in jail. He’s a world-class meszcalero with zero marketing budget so he flags down customers driving out of the Oaxaca valley. We stop and taste the best mezcal from a donkey-powered roadside still I’m ever likely to. We buy a jug, or rather we empty a pickle jar and he fills it: he doesn’t have much in the way of merch either.

Fast forward a few hours driving through semi-desert heat, a couple of nasty topes and a road block. Scary looking Federales are searching for weapons and I have a gun hidden under the camper’s carpet. Luckily that carpet is now soaked in old-dog urine and the contents of a pickle jar of mezcal that must have fallen out of the cupboard when we hit a tope. For the rest of this story, you’re going to have to read the book.

Follow this bonus-material blog and ride along on a one-year road trip that inspired the memoir The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan American Highway. On sale now. Get yours through the buy-the-book links at the bottom my teresabrucebooks.com website landing page or here or here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa.