My Work - Margarita Making

It's early on a Tuesday morning and I can't sleep.

I'm concerned about the Pacific Crest Trail this year. Plus there are decisions to be made and such.
My phone light flickers indicating I've received an email. It's 3am.  It's a thank you note from one Loren Baker. Loren runs a Search Optimization Journal whose newsletter I recently signed up for. The Journal is quite good and I've learned a few SEO tactics already.

I'm struck by the personal-sounding nature of the email. It reads more like an email from an old friend or work partner than a newsletter confirmation script. Having subscribed to hundreds of feeds, trust me that when I say most confirmation notices are just perfunctory email-checks.

Not this one, though. This one is special, It deserves a response.

(The following is a transcription of Loren's initial email followed by my reply)

Subject: 

Why Do You Read Search Engine Journal?

From

Loren from Search Engine Journal loren@searchenginejournal.com

3:03 AM (7 hours ago)

Hi Justin,

I want to thank you again for being a Search Engine Journal newsletter subscriber.

I launched SEJ 11 years ago with the dream of building a blog that is educational, engaging, and innovative. What started as a personal project now has an incredible editorial team led by Executive Editor, Kelsey Jones, dozens of guest authors, and over 1 million pageviews every month.

I want to keep SEJ ahead of the curve and am always looking to make the site better. One way to do this is by understanding who reads the blog, so I thought what better way to know then just ask you, the reader!

So... Why do you read SEJ?

Are you a marketing professional? An independent consultant, in-house or agency? Or a marketing novice wanting to learn about search?

I'd love to hear more about you and what you're looking for in Search Engine Journal. I'll gladly take the time to read your email with our team so we can continue to make the site better.

Thanks for reading!

-- Loren Baker, Founder,

Loren.

I am a bartender.

I work in a Mexican Restaurant.

 This restaurant will, no doubt, be closed later this year, due to the commercial property speculators in this country who have manipulated the market to reflect the absurd valuations demanded by their paymasters. Unfortunately for me, I'll remain employed despite this seemingly grim news.

"Why?" You might ask...

 Well, I've been primarily making margaritas for the last 20 years and I'm damned good at it. I've made $60 margaritas and I've made $2 margaritas. I've made every imaginable divergent concoction that could ever come from margaritas. Because of my experience and depth of learning with regards to the subtle flavoring differentials of sour mix and tequila, I'll inevitably be scooped up by some new Mexican joint. Just as now, I'll be paid slave wages to make more margaritas per hour than any single human has ever made before. It's going to be hell. But without benefits.

   I'm going to tell you something, Loren. I've apprenticed, experimented, researched, and tasted my way through life, all in search of One Truth. Because that's all we get in life, Loren: One Truth. I do not know if man landed the moon, and I'm not certain whether we live in a hologram or not, but I can tell you this: I know what makes a good margarita.

Since I discovered that One Truth, my life has been a whirlwind of ...

Actually come to think of it, no-one really gives a shit. 
It's really a goddamn shame. Most times I know my talents are wasted on these schmucks. They don't deserve the incredible mixological masterpieces I create... But I have to stand here and watch them insipidly suck down my art like it was FRUIT PUNCH! The whole time their eyes never veering away from the game on TV or the new snackbag app or whatever they call it on their phones.

Would you like to know the worst part about all of this though, Loren? We're living in a transformative age. Human evolution is here now; we're evolving as a people toward an immaterial future. Humanity will use technology to become more than man. "Trans-humanism," some call it. Do you think these "Transhumanists" are going to be big margarita drinkers, Loren?

Do you?!

Well I can tell you right now that they most certainly will not!  But even if they do, it doesn't matter!  Because it seems none of the young people I work with understand the importance of learning to make something that is truthfully good! I try to teach them, but they have neither the eyes to see, nor the ears to hear such wisdom. 
I've no protege. 
I'm the last of my kind; a dying breed. 
I'm Chingachcook from Last of the Mohicans.

I hope you've realized what that means, Loren.... That's right. When it's all over and I am no longer bar-tending -or am just dead as is more likely!- there's a very high probability that Peak Marg (I term I use to describe the end of a slow but finite increase in overall Margarita quality that occurs naturally throughout the world) will have been reached.... Skill levels will only decline!! From that point on, Loren, whether quickly by some catastrophic event, or slowly by way of the gradual decline in overall consumption of alcohol and highly acidic foods, Margaritas will begin their tragic decline. Oh, yes, Loren, from then on they will only taste more and more shitty!

It's a mathematical certainty.

Can you imagine what it's like to toil away in obscurity casting pearls before swine DAY AFTER DAY; knowing the whole time, that when you leave, when you give in and break down and scream "I don't want to do this anymore!" that the entire art of margarita-making dies with you?

This used to be an honorable craft. I've traced its profound history back to the very founding of the Americas. When the Jesuit missionaries (along with the conquistadors and plague) arrived in the new world and discovered fertile land throughout Mexico, guess what the first thing they did was....Yep. They started teaching the natives to cultivate agave plants and lime trees. Versed in all areas of scientific understanding, these saintly Jesuit forefathers used what we now understand to be Alchemical Magic, to distill the blue agave into "tikwila," as it became known. Soon after the lime juice was added.

That was in the early 1520s. That it is the heritage of my profession, and my abilities are the pinnacle of its product.

Exactly how far back does "Search Engine Journal-ism" go, Loren?. What master did you study under?!  What did you do, wake up one morning and say, "hmmm...I think I'm just gonna make some shit up and call it a profession!"

This society is pathetic!!!

If it weren't for the personal vow of extreme excellence in a margaritologism that I made to myself and my God, I would have punished you people by refusing my services years ago. I can't wait to DIE so you are all forced to drink lemonade flavored swill!

...

...

...

I tell you what,

I'm going to do humanity one last favor. I know you don't deserve it but I'm going to give you my One Truth. Remember, Loren: One Truth.

Here it is:

• 1 1/2 oz of tequila. (Cuervo Tradicional will do)
• 1/2oz Cointreau (do not substitute triple sec)
• 1/2 tsp agave nectar (this used to be soooo exotic, but can be found in almost any Bevmo these days)
• 1/2oz + fresh squeezed lime (use 1 full lime)
• 3/4oz fresh squeezed orange juice (use 1/4 of an orange)
• 1/3oz. Grand Mariner (don't get cheap on this, Loren)

1) Salt rim of glass using Roses lime juice, and Kosher Salt.

2. Fill empty glass 3/4 full with clean ice. fill shaker with same amount of ice. combine all ingredients in shaker, put top onto shaker, and shake that thing until the metal develops an outer frost layer.

3) Strain shaker contents into salted glass.

The key is the fresh the squeezed orange, Loren. 
Margaritas, by their very nature, mask the taste of tequila.

Using anything better than Patron is idiotic.

Good day to you.

Sincere regards,

Justin