Rumors? What terrible rumors? Well, for instance, did you know that:

If you pour Corona into a CD player, a demon will inhabit your CD player, and it will never work again?

If you mix Corona with peach schnapps you create chemicals that permanently tighten your vocal chords and make you talk like Macy Grey for the rest of your life?

Corona is haunted by the ancient Mayans, and every bottle contains the soul of a chicken?

All true.

Also true that Corona is the proud victim of one of the few urban legends to ever be (what's the expression) chased to ground. Back in 1987 a couple of Nevada grocery stores pulled Corona off the shelf, because they'd heard Mexican brewery workers urinated in those bottles destined for US consumption. This gives me a rich, cinematic set of mental images, doesn't it you? A line of Diego Rivera figures on a catwalk above the open hops vat, loosening the ropes in their loose white cotton pants, and smiling sleepy smiles of relief and revenge. . . .

Erase all that. Ugly rumor started by the local Reno Nevada Heineken distributor. Corona sued them, got an apology, and spent half a million dollars in 1987 to stamp out those mental images.

They succeeded, I guess, because Corona Extra is the #1 imported beer in the US. They failed, I guess, because variations of those rumors of unclean water keep floating around. They cropped up on epinions again recently, which is why I'm writing this.

Why, I wonder, are these rumors given any credence? Why, when you see and smell the Pacific waters off the coast of Tijuana, and know that the border town populations have exploded in the last five years well ahead of the Mexican ability to provide basic infrastructure like sewage treatment plants, and when you cross the border and (Oh my God I forgot) accidentally brush your teeth with tap water and become a walking biohazard for five long miserable days, when you hear there's a layer of fecal material everywhere 10 feet underneath the streets of Mexico City which must be pumped out for any construction project, why oh why would you question the wholesome quality of a Mexican import? Are you racist, or something? Corona Extra is clearly the victim of national stereotypes, and to talk about coliform bacteria is not helpful.

Corona Extra is brewed by Grupo Modelo S.V., and Grupo Modelo runs eight inland breweries spread across the country. (Their country.) The largest is in Mexico City. Yes, they begin their brewing process with questionable water. Everybody does. Bud starts in St. Louis with the muddy brew from the Mississippi. Your protection here is that the US distributor, out of Chicago, would be criminally liable if Corona hadn't purified the legal amount of urine out. That's why there's a US distributor to begin with. And it's easy to test. In other words, you're fine. Learn to relax. It's very important that you learn to relax.

(And you know, I like Corona, ice cold, baking myself poolside, best served with a palm tree and the fragrance of sunblock on the sweating flesh of the person next to me. With lime slice to hide the taste. But then the taste is beside the point, isn't it? Sol would work just as well in these circumstances, or Coors Light, or a Boones Farm strawberry wine cooler.)

On the other hand, I'd caution everybody about what they drink domestically in Mexico, especially canned Mexican beer. From the cans you get the clear, strong taste of metal, a taste like the odor of a lead smelter, an interesting but ultimately sinister thick coating on the tongue that makes me desperately thirsty afterwards. You can't love life and drink much Mexican canned beer, of whatever brand.



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