It is said that one drinks to forget but with its line of artisanal beers a Mexican microbrewery aims to help people remember and mock the politicians who mocked them first.
The beer maker Error de Diciembre has come out with the new brews, whose labels are caricatures of ex-presidents, along with one for the sitting president of the United States.
The first beer in the series is called Carlitos and recognizes Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who governed between 1988 and 1994. In the brewery’s words, Salinas is “the most iconic politician in terms of just how messed up the Mexican political system is. A quintessential criminal, [Salinas] is a corrupt [politician] who didn’t know how to lead the country and sold us smoke.”
The second beer is dedicated to Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, president between 1964 and 1970, singled out by history as having been responsible for the Tlatelolco massacre of 1968, when the military fired on protesting citizens, mostly students, killing as many as 400.
The beer is called Tlatelolco and is said to be the most bitter in the series.
The third brew honors the “encouraging alternation of power in 2000” which brought Vicente Fox Quesada to power between 2000 and 2006, ending 71 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
Called Comes y Te Vas, “eat and then you go,” the chai-infused beer remembers Fox’s snub of Cuban president Fidel Castro when the former warned Castro in a leaked telephone conversation that he must “eat and then leave” during the 2002 International Conference on Financing for Development. Fox wished to limit Castro’s presence at the event so as to not upset then-United States president George W. Bush.
Next in the series comes La Calderona, likening ex-president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, 2006-2012, with the icon of the Day of the Dead, La Catrina. The label on the high alcohol content beer (15%) depicts a cross, a bottle and a skull, alluding to Calderón’s alleged alcoholism and the deaths brought by the War on Drugs that he promoted.
U.S. President Donald J. Trump is also celebrated by the brewery with a beer called Amigous, or “friends,” spelled to give it a gringo accent. Brewed in association with Cervecería Cru Cru, the label shows Trump dressed as a mariachi, with a fusion of elements from both nations.
A second collaboration, this time with a brewery based in northern Mexico, will be called La Legítima, “the legitimate,” featuring leftist politician Andrés Manuel López Obrador (referred to as AMLO), the self-appointed “legitimate president of Mexico” after he was defeated by Calderón in 2006.
AMLO’s beer is due to be released next month.
The current president will not be left out. Enrique Peña Nieto is to be remembered with not just one beer but a series that will go on sale on the last day of his term, November 30, 2018. “One beer wouldn’t be enough to remember all his mistakes,” said the brewery.
Famed editorial cartoonist Antonio Helguera was commissioned to create each of the labels for the presidential beers. Using humor, they serve as reminders that the country’s problems have a first and last name, he said.
“Mexico is surrounded with misfortune, tragedy; we must take it all humorously and laugh a little at those who commit the abuses and toast their health,” said the cartoonist, smiling sarcastically.
The Error de Diciembre brewery, as its name suggests, deals as much in satire as it does in beer. The name means “December’s mistake” and refers to the currency crisis of December 1994 during Salinas de Gortari’s term, the impact of which is known as the Tequila Effect.
The brewery produces just 5,000 liters annually, selling its products through specialty shops and bars.
Source: Mexico News Daily