Cusano Rojo

[rrehkemper]

Someone just offered me an unopened bottle of Cusano Rojo, 100% Agave, Mezcal, Legitimo de Oaxaca. They say it has a worm in it. Anyone ever hear of it?

[MrAgave]

I see it all of the time in Mexico. Big cartoony worm on the label. I've never tried it, but have heard many mixed reviews...

[rrehkemper]

After further checking, according to the Ian Chadwick forum its not suitable for drinking, so I guess it will just be a part of the bottle collection (the screw-top cap I guess is a sign of its quality).

[Rosco]

yeah, it's not good, but i bought one of their small round shaped bottles in Mexico with a small bag of salt attached to it.I had never seen one of those, that's why i bought it at the time it was neat for my collection, have you seen this one before, not the usual tall bottle design.

[PRJack]

To say that Gusano de Oro is harsh is quite the understatement!

While there is a certain legitimacy (or at least history/mythos) to the inclusion of the worm, I'd say that for this product it's more a case of marketing. (Actually, having a background in Entomology/Zoology I've managed to identify numerous things in their bottles - including beetle larvae! - not just the Agave Caterpillar which is supposed to be used!)

edit--
A quick side-story here... A few years back I read an online piece about using a Britta filter to make cheap vodka taste better. It seemed reasonable as the activated charcoal would removed impurities - hence some of the 'bad' tastes.

Well I had a large bottle of Gusano de Oro that had been given to me (notice the consistency of people giving this stuff away! ). And to top it off the bottle had been opened, one shot poured and then sat for a couple of years. So we're talking about as bad as it gets.

I recalled the Britta experiment and thought 'hmmm... I wonder if that would work on GdO?' The mad scientist in me thrilled with anticipation and off I went to experiment. After running the GdO through the filter 3 times there was little change. After two more passes the colour went from yellow-ish to grey-ish. And the flavour did indeed improve! Although when asked how good it was my standard response was 'well at the start it was disgustingly horrible, and at the end it was just horrible!'