Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Corona and lime

This article by Martin Lindstrom in the Jan. 4 issue of Parade includes some trivia about Corona and lime:
The Corona-and-lime ritual dates back only to 1981, when, reportedly on a bet with his buddy, a bartender popped a lime wedge into the neck of a Corona to see if he could start a trend.

This simple act, which caught on like wildfire, is generally credited with helping Corona overtake Heineken as the best-selling imported beer in the U.S. market.
Since the bartender and the buddy are unidentified, and Lindstrom uses the words "reportedly" and "generally credited," I wonder whether this bit of trivia is actually true. If you have any insights into this tasty question, please let me know.

Yes, I already queried the invaluable Snopes.com, as a search there for "Corona" turned up nothing.

Friday, January 02, 2009

"Women are writing science-fiction!"

This is the back cover of Sign of the Labrys by Margaret St. Clair, a 1963 paperback original novel from Bantam. (I bought it in October from David Hartwell in the huckster room at Capclave in Rockvill, Md.)

Besides the gender issues, I'm interested that the hyphen in "science fiction" as a noun was still around as late as the Kennedy administration.