Spring Break – 5:00 Fridays

It’s almost spring break, and that means just one thing: tequila!

I never was a spring break kind of girl. My senior year of college I was home with the chicken pox over spring break while all my friends went to Mexico. But who am I kidding? My dad would have never let me go to Mexico anyway. I usually spent spring break waiting tables to earn some extra money and frequent the cool watering holes that weren’t jam packed with students get ahead on school work and enjoy quiet time in the library stacks while everyone else was whooping it up on a beach somewhere.

Then I met Shan and Chris.

At a party one particularly miserable frosty winter in Minneapolis, Shan, Chris, Mac Daddy, and I decided on a whim to escape to Key West. Tequila might have been involved in said whim. We were all cubicle dwellers at the time (except for Shan who worked from home) so we created our own spring break. And a tradition, albeit a short lived one, was born. In subsequent years we took turns going to graduate school and still met up in Miami airport every March for our road trip to Key West. I put my head down while we drove over the Seven Mile Bridge, and we stopped at a cute little tiki bar on Islamorada for lunch and refreshments. We stuck to the same plan year after year. Our needs were simple.

We were happy campers at Willy T’s, Captain Tony’s, Sloppy Joe’s, and some Irish pub whose name escapes me. We would sway and sing along to whatever Black & Skabuddah were playing, making up the lyrics and belting them out confidently. During those breezy Key West afternoons we would sip cold  bottled beer and pucker through tart margaritas, on the rocks with salt, never frozen. Since we all have kids now and haven’t made it back to Key West for some time, I still harken back to those days every time spring break rolls around. And so for today’s kick off to spring break, I’m combining two of my favorite liquid luxuries.

Spring Break

1 shot of tequila (I still have Patron from last week’s 5:00 Fridays.)

1 bottle of Corona or Dos Equis

2-3 ounces of limeade

wedge of lime

Pour tequila into a large frosty mug. Slowly add beer, careful to not get too much foam. Top with limeade. Garnish with lime wedge.

That’s all you need to beckon spring, whose hotter cousin Summer will prance in before we know it. The only thing missing are Shan and Chris.