The waves tumble onto the sand moving tiny fragments into ridges and then bringing them back apart as the water retreats. The sound of the wind passing through the palm trees creates a whooshing sound that could satisfy the coldest of souls. People that have no connection but their location pepper the beach and wade into the open water forgetting everything they left at home. No kids. No distractions. Just the calm and consistency that the coast brings. Some may say that one thing missing is a cocktail.
While that is true for many, I am in the small percentage that could be in Mexico for a week and never have a drink. That wasn’t the case on this trip. My go-to on the rare occasions I do partake, Malibu and pineapple, wasn’t necessarily tasting as I liked. The resort did not use real pineapple juice: the star of the show, I might add. If I can taste the alcohol, I don’t like it. Why drink at all then? I don’t know. Maybe deep within me is an incessant need to appear normal. Who goes to Mexico and doesn’t drink? Margaritas? Gross. Anything besides coconut rum? Nope. Wine. Rarely if it is fruity. Beer? Absolutely not. All I know is that if it has the words “Bahama” or “mama,” I’ll probably bite. Or really anything that a teenager would like if they hadn’t been bitten by the all-familiar bug that alcohol brings creeping into the lives of its victims. I decided to branch out. My husband was going to try and find a frozen drink that I liked. A tumultuous task. He brought out a tray with a couple options.
“You won’t like this one,” he retorted after sipping it. I tried it. It was the most delicious thing on the planet. “Tropical Pick-Me-Up” was the name and, oh, man, did it pick me up. I perked up and decided this was it. Now I could drink these by the beach. Opting for the pool at this point, I kept getting them. Worried, I decided that the 5th one would be the absolute last. I felt fine, but it seemed to travel beyond my cup of tea to have enough to take me down on the second day of the trip. Walking in a perfect line, feeling great, I went to the bar to order one more.
I found it on the menu, finding it odd that I hadn’t seen it before. If I had seen the ingredients, I most definitely would have ordered it upon first sighting. There it was shining on a stage: Tropical Pick-Me-Up. Under a menu section that stated “Cocktails Sin Alcohol.” I knew with my two years of high-school Spanish exactly what that meant. My husband clearly doesn’t know Spanish. Sin means without. These were just Slurpees. No wonder I liked it. No wonder it picked me up. I added a splash of coconut rum to it after that and took in the Mexican sun.