It Can’t Be the End of the World If Happy Hour Is Still On
It Can’t Be the End of the World If Happy Hour Is Still On
Terremotos in Chile
On September 16th an 8.3 magnitude earthquake hit Chile, displacing one million people and killing five. On September 18th, Chileans toasted their Independence Day with earthquakes.
It takes a certain sense of humor to call a drink after a national disaster. It also takes a certain sense of humor to call ice cream floating in a liter of wine a national drink.
My first terremoto—earthquake—was at Santiago’s oldest bar, La Piojera, the name of which means “the place where fleas live.” Over the long years many fleas have lovingly carved their names and thoughts into the bar’s tables, chairs, and walls. A Peruvian woman with her eyebrows drawn on about midway up her forehead recommended that I have what she was having and instructed me to order a terremoto.
Given the eclectic bar and its eclectic patrons, I assumed that the eclectic drink I was given must be a La Piojera special. A liter glass of cheap white wine from a carton, a sundae’s worth of pineapple ice cream, and a dash of sweet grenadine syrup. I was partially right. The terremoto is traditionally topped off with bitter fernet liquor, not grenadine; that sickeningly sweet twist is La Piojera’s special. I couldn’t finish my first terremoto and left Santiago not particularly sorry to say goodbye to them.
When I got to Puerto Montt, the rainy, industrial port town I’d call home for the next few months, I found that terremotos had followed me, appearing on the menus of just about every bar, restaurant, and café. Turns out that the drink is ubiquitous along the whole of Chile’s 2,700-mile long stretch of territory.
Terremotos were first concocted by a Santiago barman who needed to entertain international journalists reporting on the earthquake of 1985. The drink’s potency and its association with this disaster, which left over a hundred people dead, gave it its name.
They ask for patience; they’re best drunk when the ice cream has melted into the wine, silkening the texture of the drink and balancing the sour, sweet, and bitter constituents into one. More often than not, they’re instead subjected to an impatient mangling, breaking the iceberg of ice cream down into clumps that can be skewered by a straw and eaten between slurps of sharp liquid.
September 18th is Chile’s Independence Day but the whole week surrounding it is fiestas patrias, a week where nobody expects to get anything done. Many businesses and schools close their doors for seven days of government-endorsed binge eating and drinking.
The school where I work held a staff fiestas patrias dinner on the 16th. Chicken, sausages, and pork grilled outside in the winter cold. The teachers stood around the barbecue, drinking home-made terremotos. As the resident gringa I was asked three times if this was my first one. The wine hit empty stomachs quickly and someone started playing the guitar from the day’s fiestas patrias assembly.
It was after the meal was done that phones started ringing like sirens. I was ignorant of this special ringtone for earthquake alerts. My Spanish is so poor that I assumed the terremoto everyone was suddenly talking about was the drink. I couldn’t handle another, so at least my stomach was relieved when the English teacher explained to me:
“There’s been an earthquake. We’re on tsunami alert.”
Images of the sea swelling up to overwhelm our port town immediately came to mind. I looked out into the street, expecting hordes of people carrying furniture and pets to higher ground, but it was empty. The teachers were calmly continuing to clear dishes and didn’t seem to be on alert.
“Should we evacuate or something?” I asked a teacher.
He dismissed that. “Let’s get a cocktail!”
My stomach had already been punished by terremotos and I was dreading a cold death by drowning, but I agreed. It couldn’t be the end of the world if happy hour was on.