What is a Tequila Worm? Should you eat it? And why is it there?
All your questions on that little worm inside your tequila bottle answered - This is the ultimate guide on the Tequila Worm
The myth, the legend, the confusion of that floating worm inside our tequila bottles. Some of us have never even seen one other than in movies. Is it even a real thing? Does it still exist? I’m here to tell you that yes the Tequila Worm does exist, and yes it is still a thing.
I recall my days working in somewhat of a dive bar with a bottle of Monte Alban on the back bar, a brand of mezcal with the infamous worm floating at the bottom of the bottle and also happens to come with a small bottle filled with extra mezcal pickled worms. For those of you who just can’t get enough.
The fun we had sneaking worms into shots of mezcal for one and other. Living on diets of mezcal and worms. Those were the days.
During that time I had a lot of recurring questions on the infamous worm. Is it alive? Why is it there? Does it taste of anything? Etc. And so I’ve answered those questions as well as a few more popular concerns below.
Spoiler: You should probably avoid mezcal with a worm inside it, not because of the worm itself but because it's normally a good indication of brands which have more of a focus on marketing then flavour. It's probably the biggest marketing ploy for agave spirits since the old tequila slammer.
Are Tequila Worms alive?
That little worm inside your bottle of tequila is not alive. In fact, if it wasn’t for drowning in booze then that little worm would turn into a beautiful butterfly (or moth rather), as it’s not a worm at all. It’s the larvae of a moth. But more on that later.
Are tequila worms edible?
They are indeed. Feel free to gulp down that worm to your hearts content. I’m warning you now though, it will not be very nice.. However, Mexican chefs often incorporate gusano de maguey the worm into dishes, and the fried version makes for a great drinking snack alongside tequila.
What happens when you eat the worm in tequila
Nothing happens when you eat the Tequila worm. I know there are stories about whether it’ll make you sick, drunk, or whether the tequila worm is a hallucinogenic but I’m here to tell you they are myths. The only thing that happens when you ear the tequila worm is that you’ve just eaten a worm.
Will eating a tequila worm make me sick?
That is a difficult question to answer. Maybe? They are pretty damn small and if you swallow it whole washing it down with mezcal then you shouldn’t even feel it in your mouth. However if you decide to chomp on it as if you’re in a bush tucker trial then you are probably going to taste it.
As for throwing up and physically being sick, that depends on how squeamish you are. They don’t necessarily taste disgusting, it's more the thought of what it is that gets people. A baby moth.
Does the worm add to the flavour?
Contrary to popular belief the worm does not add anything to the flavour.
Are tequila worms hallucinogenic?
I’m not quite sure where this myth that the tequila worm is hallucinogenic comes from but rest assured that it is not true. You can eat as many tequila worms as you like, you will ever hallucinate.
If I had to warrant a guess as to where this came from, I’d say that due to the worm being in the bottom of the mezcal bottle, it meant you had to drink the whole bottle of mezcal before you got to it. Meaning by the time you had the worm you were just about drunk enough to think you were hallucinating.
After you have just polished off a bottle of mezcal and had a strange bug that everyone around you was telling you was going to make you hallucinate. You probably are most likely going to fool yourself into thinking it's true.
This is similar to absinthe. Absinthe got a reputation for being hallucinogenic even though that’s not exactly the case as I talk about in this article here: Absinthe guide part 3 - Hallucinating and how to serve. If absinthe interests you then check out part 1 of of that guide and part 2 first. Hallucinating is covered in part 3. I also covered it in episode 1 of Nightcap, the podcast about drink stories.
Does the tequila worm get you drunk?
No, although it's soaked and pickled in mezcal, there isn’t enough booze on the warm itself to get you drunk. The shots you take to build yourself up to eating it however, might just do the job.
Why does Tequila have a worm in it?
Origins to why it’s there in the first place are pretty murky but there are two stories that make sense. The first of which is simply a marketing ploy. Which to be fair, works wonders. When staring unknowingly at a shelf of mezcal it can be difficult to choose one. When there's a drowned worm in the bottom of the bottle that stands out, promotes curiosity and hence makes you want to buy it.
The second comes from a suggested old strategy for telling different bottles apart. On agave plantations, Jimadors who harvest the agave would often end up with different bottles of interchangeable light colour liquid, both tequila and mezcal. In order to tell them apart they would pluck the dead worm from the agave plant and place it in the mezcal bottles. Somewhat of a glorified name tag if you will.
Related article: Tequila vs Mezcal - What’s the difference
What is the purpose of the worm in tequila?
If I were to place a bet on which story is true, I’d go for the fact it’s nothing more than a marketing gimmick. It’s great to think that these worms add flavour, or that eating the worm is an ancient Mexican tradition or it was a way to prove that the ABV was high enough to pickle the poor critter or even that they will make you hallucinate! But the truth of the matter is that the mezcal worms only started appearing in commercial bottles sometime around the 1940s or ‘50s. And was most likely just a way to make people buy more Mezcal.
Why don't they put the worm in tequila anymore?
They actually do. But it’s very limited to certain bottles. Whichever story is true of why the tequila worm exist in the first place, doesn’t matter today. If it was story 1 well, we’re past the days of dead worms making for good marketing strategies and if its story 2 we’re past the days of these distilleries being so small they have to label batches with worms.
What Tequila has a worm in it?
None. That’s right, no tequila has a worm in it. That's another common misconception. The Mexican spirit that has a worm in that bottom is actually as you’ve probably guessed by now Mezcal. Tequila and mezcal are quite similar as covered in my article on the difference between them Tequila and Mezcal, so the misunderstanding is acceptable.
Both tequila and mezcal are made by distilling the agave plant, however while mezcal can be made from a blend of one of 250 types of the cactus-like succulents. In order to be classified as tequila, a bottle must be at least 51% blue agave (agave tequilana)-the higher the percentage of blue agave, the finer the bottle.
Which means tequila is a type of mezcal, but mezcal is not tequila, and only mezcal has worms.
Read my full guide on Mezcal here to see how its made and more about the spirit with the worm.
Then check out my guide on Tequila to really understand how they differ.
If you really want to fully understand these spirits, you can also check out my article on agave spirits that are NOT Tequila as well as my complete guide on agave.
Buy Mezcal with the worm in
I don’t usually recommend Mezcal’s with worms in as it is all abit gimmicky, there are much better mezcals out there without the worm, Like Momento Verde, not to mention Ilegal Mezcal Anejo and Bozal Ensamble. All three of those are the Mezcals I love to drink and will always recommend. More I love to recommend are at the end of my Mezcal article.
However, if you really want to try it out as it is an experience to drink and eat the worm. That check out the below Mezcals.
Monte Alban
amazon.co.uk - £26.99
Monte Alban is a classic, it use to and sometimes still does come with a small bottle of extra worms. So if its the worms you’re after, this is the one.
Learn more about this Mezcal here.
El Recuerdo Mezcal
amazon.co.uk - £36.87
Another bottle with the worm in is this one, which you can get on amazon prime and be munching on a Gusano de Maguey by tomorrow afternoon…
Learn more about this Mezcal.
What I would suggest is getting one of the above just for the worm alone, stick with my other recommendations for Mezcal tasting. If you really want the best of both, I’d recommend picking up some Gusano salt, which is salt made and flavoured in Oaxacan (the birthplace of Mezcal) and flavoured with actual Mezcal worms.
Use it to rim your next Mezcal Margarita for an interesting take on the classic.
Agave Worm Salt
Perfect for margarita rimming and tasting the worm in the least gross way.
Learn more about this agave worm salt.
So it’s not a worm, and it’s not in Tequila?
That is correct! There is no such thing as a tequila worm, no worms are in spirits and especially not in tequila. However mezcal larva doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
Then what the hell is that bug in the bottom of my bottle?
The worm itself is actually a moth larvae called a gusano de maguey—since it feeds off of the maguey plant. (Maguey is agave, the plant which tequila and Mezcal is made from)
There are actually two types of larva that can be used. One is the larva of the beetle Scyphophorus acupunctatus, which is what the red larva is and the other is larva of the moth Comadia redtenbacheri from the Cossidae family of moths, which is what the white larva and most popular used is. Both of which are picture above.
Both these critters live their life on the agave plant until being plucked off for bottling.
Now that you’re fully up to date with that mezcal worm why not check out more agave spirit, tequila and mezcal articles here.
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