MORE PRODUCTS FOR DOOMSDAY

In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, there are, of course, people preparing for the End of the World/Doomsday/Armageddon/End of Days and so forth. True Believers (idiots/morons) are preparing everywhere.

However, in Milwaukee they can call in the “Practical Preppers” to help them out.

Scott Hunt, co-owner of the “Practical Preppers,” explained that prepping for the End of the World is a multi-million dollar business and that normal, ordinary people are “preparing for the end of the world as we know it."

Not only is Hunt a consultant on National Geographic Channel’s “Doomsday Preppers,” the program that exploits paranoia and hysteria, but he began a grass roots movement on You Tube to “help people prepare for the end of the world.”

First of all, Hunt is NOT a nutcase. He’s an engineer who goes to people’s homes to assess their emergency preparedness “for whatever scenario they see fit.” He evaluated their food supply, water, security, alternative energy sources and other survival gear.

So, okay, the world is not going to end in 2012. However, real emergencies will happen frequently every year and, as I’ve repeatedly suggested, it can’t hurt to be prepared. (I should, I think, take my own advice.)

When asked if he is exploiting people’s fear, he responds that once he has evaluated a home, people actually feel empowered and better prepared for whatever “Doomsday” event they see in their future, be it an electromagnetic pulse, an economic meltdown or “an ice storm.” His clients run the gamut from inner city dwellers to mountain folk, wealthy to work-a-day laborers.

When an interviewer asked him if he believes in the nonsensical Mayan Calendar predictions, he answered: "No, I think (the Mayans) ran out of space."

Casa Noble Tequila of Mexico has jumped on the Mayan Calendar bandwagon, too, with a new drink, The Mayan Margarita, “celebrating new beginnings, not the end of the World.”

Well, I’ll drink to that!

The drink was actually introduced in conjunction with Mexico’s National Tequila Day – oh, where is our Congress when we really need a new holiday? – which was February 22, George Washington’s birthday and, by the by, Ash Wednesday. For me, and not to be sacrilegious or unpatriotic, National Tequila Day trumps both.

And won’t I be a stinker if I mentioned the arrival of the Mayan Margarita and didn’t supply the recipe? Well this delicious drink is prepared thusly:

2 oz Casa Noble Crystal (or your personal favorite tequila)

2 oz Grapefruit juice (hand squeezed)

1 oz Lime juice

1 oz Tangerine juice

3/4 oz Agave nectar

Teaspoon of Tajin ground chili powder

Dry hibiscus flowers (this, I think is purely optional)

Mix all ingredients in a shaker; add one scoop of ice and SHAKE until fingers are cold. Serve strained in short glass filled with ice, and the rim garnished with a touch of agave nectar and Tajin chili powder. Place a dried hibiscus flower as garnish on top of the ice.

David Yan, mixologist for Casa Noble Tequila, added, "So from our Noble House, Casa Noble, to yours, raise your glasses to the years ahead and many more to come. Salud!"

A few of those babies and you won’t care if it’s the End of the World or the beginning of the next!