SOURCE: "The Mystique of Mezcal," in Canadian Literature, No. 112, Spring, 1987, pp. 197-202.

In the following essay, Vice examines the hallucinogenic sequences in Under the Volcano.

'If I ever start to drink that stuff, Geoffrey, you'll know I'm done for.'

'It's mescal with me . . . Tequila, no, that is healthful . . . and delightful.' (UV 219)

On the other hand there had been until recently several drinks of mescal (why not?—the word did not intimidate him, eh?) waiting for him outside in a lemonade bottle and all these he both had and had not drunk . . . (UV 304)

A confusion between the drink mescal and the drug mescaline seems to lie at the bottom of Under the Volcano, as if it were con gusano, with an agave worm in its gourd:

The worm isn't there for looks. It is meant to be eaten. Because it is believed by many that within the...