In the late '90s, a high school friend of mine from the San Francisco Bay Area, Christopher T. Palmer, asked if I wanted to write for a tequila website he was starting called TequilaFancy.com. You'll be the L.A. correspondent, he said. I didn't really drink tequila. I knew next to nothing about how it was made. Sure, no problem. What journalistic integrity?
I didn't embark on the venture with visions of swag in my head, but I'll be damned if liquor companies didn't send me boxes of Patron and Cabo Wabo, unsolicited. The rep for one tequila maker even talked to me about bringing me down to Mexico for a tour of the distillery. I have no idea how many hits the site got, but I'm sure the number wouldn't have justified the expense. (Ah, the glory days of the internet boom.) I even got interviewed on-camera as a tequila expert for a show called National Enquirer TV. You never saw it? Me, either.
In the end, I developed a taste for the stuff, and I learned a few things about it, too. For instance, did you know that John Wayne's favorite libation was Sauza Conmemorativo Tequila? Remember that the next time you're looking to wow your grandpa with your knowledge of Hollywood history.
I didn't embark on the venture with visions of swag in my head, but I'll be damned if liquor companies didn't send me boxes of Patron and Cabo Wabo, unsolicited. The rep for one tequila maker even talked to me about bringing me down to Mexico for a tour of the distillery. I have no idea how many hits the site got, but I'm sure the number wouldn't have justified the expense. (Ah, the glory days of the internet boom.) I even got interviewed on-camera as a tequila expert for a show called National Enquirer TV. You never saw it? Me, either.
In the end, I developed a taste for the stuff, and I learned a few things about it, too. For instance, did you know that John Wayne's favorite libation was Sauza Conmemorativo Tequila? Remember that the next time you're looking to wow your grandpa with your knowledge of Hollywood history.
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