As we transition into Porch Sitting season it’s time to move away from the stouts and porters of the beer world and onto the more weather appropriate cervezas of Mexico. And with that comes limes. Though I’ve had many a Mexican beer in my day and garnished plenty of mixed drinks, I’ve never been totally satisfied with my ability to properly stock or cut a lime. Seems like I never have one when I need one. And when I do remember to grab limes it takes me forever to get them cut right. Well I’ve solved both problems in the last month.
Since limes are cheap I usually buy three of four at a time. I inevitably use one or two and the rest go to waste. Maybe I’m an idiot and this is common knowledge, but no one ever mentioned to me to keep the limes in the fridge. If you immediately put the lime in the fridge when you get home, it’ll last up to 3-4 weeks instead of 4-5 days. Which means that if you make it to the store once a month during the April-September cerveza season then you’ll always be good to go.
As for cutting the lime, I recently found the video below. After sitting through a 30 second commercial you’ll get a well produced video lesson on cutting limes. The basic concept is to cut the end from both pointed sides of the lime. Then stand the lime on of the cut ends and halve it from the top down. From here you can easily cut lime wedges. However, I differ from the video and prefer to cut slices of lime that will easily fit into a bottle. So instead of cutting from cut end to end to make wedges, I slice parallel with the cut ends to make thin slices. My advice would be to only slice one half of the lime for a six pack and immediately put the other half back in the fridge. Also, Pacifico is currently The Drunken Tailgate warm weather tailgating beer of choice. I’m not sure if Pacifico is the best beer by itself, but it’s mixture with Lime is unparalleled. If you’re tailgating, just cut the limes ahead of time, put them in a ziploc bag, and throw them in your cooler with the beer.
(photo by shaderlab)