Tequila

Ever stumble into a place and create a perfect memory?

A few years ago we spent four weeks driving through New Zealand. A trip that was, from start to finish, one highlight after another. We began at Milford Sound and made our way slowly north, and when we reached the Coromandel Peninsula, something in us both said: slow down, stay a while.

We had spent the previous week in motion, hiking, exploring, ticking things off the map. The Coromandel asked for none of that. We found secluded beaches where we were the only people for miles, swam in water so perfect it felt implausible, napped in the sun, ate picnics with no particular agenda. We were, in the fullest sense of the phrase, living our best lives.

On the walk to and from the beach, we would pass a small Mexican restaurant that was always closed. Then one evening, on our way back, we spotted someone setting up tables outside. We stopped to ask about hours and reservations.

Reservations, he explained, were loosely recommended. Most guests were walk-ins, but the restaurant only opened a couple days a week, weather permitting and word had gotten around. It tended to fill up. So we made our reservation, which is to say, we told him we'd be back after dropping our things off and changing out of our beach clothes, and went on our way.

The evening was perfect in the way that certain evenings simply are, without trying. Warm air, a gentle sea breeze that cooled everything down by exactly the right amount. All the seating was outdoors, open to the sky. The tables, we discovered, had tic-tac-toe painted directly onto them, with small pieces supplied to play with. We ordered food and margaritas, and while we waited for our food, we sipped and played and talked. Everything felt easy in the way it only does when you're with your favourite person in the world and nowhere else you'd rather be.

The next couple of hours passed in the best possible way: tacos, tequila, tic-tac-toe, conversation that went nowhere in particular and everywhere that mattered. By the time the dinner rush had faded and the restaurant was nearly empty, we were still there, the last guests remaining, in no hurry to be anywhere else.

We got talking to our waiter. Then the others. There were 5 staff in total, two in the kitchen, three on the floor(one of whom was also the manager), all of them gap year students visiting NZ spending their days surfing and their evenings working in the Coromandel's hospitality trade. Young, easy company, full of plans they were only too happy to share.

We offered to buy them a round. Whatever they wanted from the bar, on us. That was the deal.

What followed was a surprisingly lengthy group deliberation. Same drink or different drinks? the same, surely? but what? Until one of the waiters reached up to a high shelf, brought down a sealed bottle, set it on the table, and settled the matter.

Banana tequila.

I want to be clear that until that moment, I had not known tequila came in flavours, least of all banana. The concept had simply never occurred to me. 

There was a bit more discussion, led mainly by the one who had produced the bottle, who was committed to his vision, and then it was agreed. The manager cracked the seal and poured 7 generous shots. We looked at each other. We made a small toast to health and good fortune, said a quiet prayer to no one in particular, and drank.

It was... not bad.

Would I order it again? Only under very specific conditions. A Mexican restaurant on the Coromandel coast. A group of gap year students with sun-bleached hair and big, unfinished dreams. A warm night, an empty restaurant, and the particular kind of evening that can't be planned, but can only be stumbled into and remembered forever.