Michelada

A michelada is a Mexican beer drink of cold lager mixed with lime juice and salt and, in most versions, chile sauces, seasoning sauces and sometimes tomato-clam juice, served in a chilled glass with a salted or chile-dusted rim. What the name covers varies by region, and its origin is disputed.

Origin and name

The most widely told story places the drink at the Club Deportivo Potosino in San Luis Potosí. Excélsior and La Razón both report that a member named Michel Ésper ordered his beer after tennis with ice, lime, salt and a straw in a tankard called a chabela, and that other members began asking for Michel's lemonade, which became michelada. Both papers date this to the 1970s; Wikipedia places it in the 1960s.

Other explanations exist. One reads the name as a contraction of mi chela helada, my cold beer, using chela, Mexican slang for beer. Excélsior also reports a story about a General Augusto Michel of San Luis Potosí who drank beer with lime, salt and hot sauce in the 1940s. La Razón describes a theory that English chilled was adapted into Spanish chelado. Mexico News Daily traces the word chela itself, citing Guido Gómez de Silva's dictionary of Mexicanisms and the Real Academia Española, to a Maya word for fair-skinned people that came to mean a blonde woman and then pale lager. La Razón states plainly that the true origin is not known.

Michelada and chelada

The line between michelada and chelada depends on where one orders. Mexico News Daily reports that in Mexico City and the State of Mexico a michelada is the simple drink of beer, lime and salt in a salt-rimmed glass, while a chelada is the dressed-up version with Clamato and seasoning sauces. In many other states the meanings are reversed: the chelada is plain beer, lime and salt, and the michelada carries the sauces. Excélsior writes that the original michelada had only beer, salt, lime and ice, and that most Mexicans now call that a chelada. In the United States, michelada nearly always means the spiced version.

Preparation and variations

A common michelada starts with a glass whose rim is rubbed with lime and dipped in salt, chile powder or Tajín. Lime juice, a few dashes of bottled hot sauce, Worcestershire-style sauce and Maggi or soy sauce go into the glass, sometimes with ice, and a light Mexican lager is poured over the top. Wikipedia lists chamoy, serrano chiles and Clamato among frequent additions.

Mexico News Daily and Excélsior describe many named versions: the michelada cubana with dark seasoning sauces; the clamachela or ojo rojo with tomato-clam juice; the camaronchela topped with shrimp and cucumber; the campechana with shrimp, olives and cucumber; and the gomichela and chamochela, sweet versions with gummy candies or chamoy. Large showpiece micheladas served in oversized cups with seafood skewers are common at street stands.

Brewers have also sold the drink ready-made. Wikipedia lists Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser Chelada, made with Clamato, and michelada-flavored products from Tecate and Modelo.

Recipe

Reviews

See also

• Chelada
• Tequila

References

1. "Michelada". Wikipedia. Retrieved 2026-10-10.
2. "El verdadero origen de la michelada: de un club potosino al éxito mundial". Excélsior. Retrieved 2026-10-10.
3. "Michelada. ¿Cuál es el origen de esta peculiar bebida?". La Razón de México. Retrieved 2026-10-10.
4. "Michelada or chelada, what's the difference?". Mexico News Daily. Retrieved 2026-10-10.