Bridger's Frog Log

I’ve been away from the beer log for the last few days but fear not, I’m still drinking. A book report was due this week for my Mesoamerican history class, so all my writing energy was expended with the ancient Maya instead of my beers. The Maya did some strange things, including cutting their penis’ and dancing around, throwing kids in wells to predict the future, and wearing the skins of foreign kings after a “Temple of Doom” styled extraction of their still beating hearts. It turns out the Maya didn’t even drink beer but they did go to some extreme lengths to achieve inebriation. I came across this in my textbook the other day:

“The Maya, like most Mesoamerican peoples, made fermented alcoholic beverages, using maize and agave…

alcoholic beverages were drunk at every ritual occasion…

During the Classic period these substance were not always administered orally. Several painted pottery vessels graphically depict the use of enemas in apparent ritual setting; the direct introduction of alcoholic or hallucinogenic substances into the colon results in immediate absorption by the body, thereby hastening the effect.”

- Sharer, The Ancient Maya. p. 751

I can think of a couple beers that should only be consumed rectally, if at all. Anyway, the fact that the Maya liked their booze in their asses didn’t stop a German company from marketing a product called “Magadon, the mystic Maya drink.” There’s a cute little story about how the Conquistadors were astounded at the Maya’s strength and then they realized that their power lay in drinking Megadon. I don’t want to ruin Megadon’s history lesson, but if you read further you find that it has no alcohol and its actually orange juice. I’ve never tried Megadon, so this can’t count as a review; I enjoy a glass of orange juice in the morning sometimes with my eggs. It’s good stuff, it’s not beer.

As a parting thought: the Maya also sucked a poisonous toad, Bufo marinus, to get loaded and hallucinate. If I were an ancient Maya I’d call my blog, “BRIDGER’S FROG LOG.”