A strawberry margarita from El Tiempo Cantina at Daikin Park. I did not take this photo. That’s easy to tell even without the credit, because unlike the photos I took, this one is actually good.
Ana Khan/ Houston Chronicle
Every place has its legends. Sasquatch haunting the piney woods of East Texas; Nessie lurking in a dark Scottish loch. Alligators lurking in sewers (or swimming happily down a hurricane-flooded I-10).
The truths of these myths are less about facts and more about the stories we need to tell ourselves in any given moment. A way to explain a shadow in the woods, an abstract fear to replace the very tangible ones the world offers every day.
Most can’t necessarily be proven (the Bigfoot enthusiasts, I know, will disagree), but one of Houston’s urban legends can be measured with the right tools, and that’s how I ended up at an Astros game with my hands around a cold margarita.
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For the uninitiated: El Tiempo, a famous Houston Mexican restaurant, opened in the Astros ballpark in 2022. Videos of people stumbling around the stadium or slumped over in their seats with empty cups in their hands, went viral last year. And so one of Houston’s legends was born: The El Tiempo margs at the ballpark were the strongest in the city.
Of course, the videos didn’t prove the margaritas were to blame. We didn’t know whether the fans had eaten a hot dog or nothing but margaritas, or how hot it was in the ballpark that day, or what else they’d been drinking. So I set out to determine whether the El Tiempo marg was actually as potent as its reputation. I was also curious why the drink had stopped being just a menu item and become a rite of passage for anyone old enough to order one. To find out, I had to join the club: grab a drink and see what happened.
Maybe I was also looking for the kind of human connection that comes from doing the same thing as a bunch of strangers. Maybe I just hoped watching the Astros would be easier through the hazy glasses as the season limps to a close, the division title still, somehow, potentially going to the Arlington Rangers.
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Or maybe it was all just an excuse to get drunk on the company dime and call it work.
So I bought a breathalyzer and set off for Daikin Park in an orange Carlos Correa jersey. I brought a marker and a notebook. I even created a spreadsheet on my phone to track time, sips, innings, feelings. This, I decided, would be science.
I did no research on the breathalyzer. I just picked the one I knew was so cheap that no one would mind if I expensed it.
Sarah Smith
After the game, I stumbled out into the night sans notebook, the spreadsheet left blank and my phone’s notes app full of letters that, at times, added up to words.
Below are the unabridged notes. I am sorry to disclose that nothing from said notes app has been edited from its original version. I have annotated as best I can.
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654 pm in line
Server tells: have your ids IN YOUR HAND. IDs out and IN YOUR HAND
7pm
In line for 10m
I hate being in line for anything
Employee in an Astros comber (comber?) eases people through the line. Come on down she says.
IDS OUT please
I stopped by the first El Tiempo stand I saw on the first floor of the ballpark, 15 minutes before the first pitch. The line snaked almost to the door. Children sang the national anthem; most people wore some form of sports attire; I smelled the cloying scent of food fried in dubiously old oil, but more than anything, I felt like I had been transported into a too-long TSA line. We shuffled ahead, half-step by half-step, as employees boomed repeatedly to have our IDs out and ready.
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Couple behind me holding hands
I am the only solo person in the line
I realized this was less a reflection on Houstonians who can’t be apart from their significant others and more a reaction to El Tiempo’s summer 2025 policy change: They would only serve one marg per ID.
I should also add that Chris Murray, an El Tiempo spokesperson, assured me the drinks at the ballpark are no more alcoholic than those at an El Tiempo restaurant. Perhaps we’re all suffering from mass psychosis.
Woman cups her hands over her mouth and hollers: IDS OUT PLEASE
IDS OUT IDS OUT
We were in line to order a famously alcoholic drink. Surely everyone knew we’d need to have our IDs out.
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Frozen or fresh.
What is science
Does it matter probs no
I pride myself on my research ability, but this endeavor humbled me even before I got my hands on my cup: I didn’t know they offered frozen and on the rocks.
I worried this could throw off the experiment, so I frantically Googled which had a higher alcohol content. The AI-generated results said a frozen margarita would be stronger. I asked the question in a slightly different way. The AI was confident that a fresh margarita would be stronger.
Woman two ahead of me does not have id out
Perhaps there should have been more yelling.
The line for the marg before the game had begun stretched nearly to the door. I have absolutely no patience and hate lines, but I stood in this one in the name of journalism.
Sarah Smith
two people to handle line
I decided to opt for frozen.
Server: Salt tajine in or naked
Me: Naked
Him: How I like my women
He pointed out that I had something on my face. Probably toothpaste, I said. You’re cute, he replied. I like that you brush your teeth. I suggested he raise his standards. Mercifully, he handed me my drink, and the interaction ended.
I realized I should have been more specific when I said I hoped to find human connection.
Why did I bring an expo not a permanent marker
I tried to draw lines on my glass to help with the measurements. The lines immediately rubbed off. This is the selling point of the Expo marker. This should not have been a surprise.
7:16
Begin drinking before my seat
So much tequila
So cold
Fear of the ball coming to me
Do not know the pitcher
This, I think, was a reflection on the Astros’ pitching more than on how much I’d had to drink.
People say alcohol can make them feel invincible, but maybe the true purpose of the El Tiempo marg at Daikin Park is to make us believe that the Astros are still invincible.
Overfilled important for science
Maybe everyone’s frozen marg is filled past the rim. Or maybe it’s because I brushed my teeth.
This was the marg before I’d had a sip. My photography is terrible, and I was sober at the time, so I really have no excuse.
Sarah Smith
Toddler looks at me
Blond
No bars (bags?) under his eyes
I tell him to make better choices
I am sure I tried to telegraph this to the toddler with my eyes.
721 am I getting a brain freeze or drink (drunk?)
Like obj or Nixon, voice memos
Nixon? I was recording voice memos — was I likening this to the Watergate tapes?
If I am to judge by my notes app, this is the point where I began to feel the effects of the alcohol.
It had only been 5 minutes since my first sip. Several reliable sources (not AI) say alcohol is absorbed into the bloodstream five to ten minutes after you start drinking, so I was at the very edge of the window. Maybe this was evidence that we get so drunk off the marg simply because we want permission to be silly.
But we don’t need to judge my drunkenness by my notes app. That is why I brought the breathalyzer.
Pete lamber (Lambert) 1 run on 3 hits
You might have remembered that this entire endeavor took place at an Astros game. You might be wondering how the game was going. It’s a good question, because I had absolutely no idea.
Usually I am locked into the Astros. Should you doubt me, I have several references.
I am so distracted by marg what is gear
Gear? Door? Couldn’t tell you.
10 min in, barely scratched. A centimeter down (
This is when I breathalyzed myself for the first time. So my incoherence wasn’t because of the tequila. Maybe it was just my typing. Or maybe I just wanted an excuse for whimsy. In this particular timeline, I’ve found myself snatching whatever whimsy I can.
Alternately, a disclaimer: I’d bought my knockoff breathalyzer from Amazon for $19.99 (plus tax plus $2.29 for overnight shipping). I’d forgotten I shared an Amazon account with my mother, who gets the email receipts, so she promptly called to ask what was wrong. I asked what she meant, and she said: “Your Amazon purchase.”
Most breathalyzers on Amazon cost around $150. So take its readings as you will.
Did not bring the proper tools
2 thumbnails in 15m
Because I was still committed to science and my Expo marker had proven useless, I tried to measure by my thumbnails.
My organs are pickling
I should also offer some context here. When I explained this test-a-notoriously-strong-drink conceit to a friend, he reminded me I am unable to have more than half a gin before I get drunk. Later, in an unrelated conversation, I told him he’s nicer than I am and then paused to admit the bar for being nicer than I am is on the floor. He said, Just like you’ll be after that drink.
So perhaps my organs pickle faster than others’.
My thumbnail is approximately 1.5 centimeters across.
Greatest fear to be on a sabers but now could I
Sabers? What is a saber? A saber-tooth tiger? Using context clues: My greatest fear is to be on the Jumbotron (sabers) as a ball hurtles my way, and I inevitably fumble it and/or simply cower. But maybe the El Tiempo marg would somehow make me coordinated.
Did I mean “pitching”?
I think this was 20 minutes in. I blew a 0.09.
Perhaps a $19.99 (plus tax plus $2.29 shipping) breathalyzer would not hold up in court.
According to the Texas Department of Transportation, I was past the legal limit of 0.08. I could not drive, I could not fly, I could not boat. I had no intention of driving and I have a healthy fear of small planes, but I am always looking for an excuse to get on/in the water.
Fortunately, I did not have access to a boat.
No one comments on me breathalyzer
I first read this as “on me breathalyzer,” as though I am a pirate. My editor suggested I might have meant to insert a comma. This is why she is an editor, and I am not.
But imagine, for a moment: You are at a baseball game. You see a woman sipping a notoriously strong drink, then immediately breathalyzing herself and giggling. Wouldn’t you have questions?
I think I was trying to take a photo of the Breathalyzer by the cup to show how much I’d had to drink. Since the whole actual measurement thing wasn’t working.
Sarah Smith
The toddler kept looking at me.
32 minutes in, still blowing a 0.09
It I were next to someone breathalyxinh themselves while drinking if ask Qs
Was the toddler the only observant human around me? Did people notice but not care? Were they curious but too awkward to ask? Maybe this is part of what’s wrong with our society. We’re tucked so far behind our screens that we no longer know how to tap someone on the shoulder and say, Hey, are you breathalyzing yourself?
I believe this was the breathalyzer’s way of telling me I was too drunk to use it properly.
I do not know. To my editor: I am so sorry I took your title in vain.
I feel serene 1/3 there
I am almost never serene.
½?????
Not cute
I want a chicken. Ugh et
Does this woman tvibf an alcoholic is waving at her kid
While. M i. Mm S saw
On The note water
Find water
At some point, I also found Blue Bell.
I hi five strangere sad sass
I do not recall high-fiving anyone. When I am sober, I do not generally high-five strangers. But for better or worse, I’ve been a journalist for a decade, and I believe my notes.
I do know I wandered, Blue Bell pint in hand, peering at other people’s stadium food. One man had wings. I asked where he got them. I was too drunk to remember the answer.
I don’t know what this means, but I do know that I acquired chicken fingers. I know this because of my credit card statement, not because I remember them.
Marg waits sir me half wa
At one point, I had chocolate sauce smeared on my legs. I only know this because I recorded it in a voice memo. To the recipient of said voice memo: I am sorry.
Sending halt much tequila
1h
2/3 they
I believe this is meant to be “2/3 thru.” As in, I had downed two-thirds of the overflowing cup. Because my lofty scientific methods had proven woefully inadequate against the tequila, I don’t know if this counted the overflow.
I blew a 0.13. I have photo evidence.
At this point, the internet tells me I might have been coming down from the high of the initial drink and feeling “depressive effects.” (I was happy.) I might have had “gross motor impairment.” (I’m so uncoordinated that it’s almost impossible to tell.) My judgment might have been “severely impaired.” (Probably.)
This was my highest reading. Again, this Breathalyzer cost $19.99, so take that as you will.
Sarah Smith
No one has asked. R
No curiosity (
Do not pay attention
Do not dual uh
Disk In usually
I had aspirations of tracking the time. Or at least tracking innings. I had aspirations of many things.
El Trevor records do you want a margarita 824
Who is Trevor? Who is “you”? Who am I? What happened to the notebook I brought?
I hate when Marge sneak up on me
If I am to assume “Marge” is an autocorrected “marg,” I should admit that the marg didn’t sneak up on me. I skipped down that dark alley with open eyes to meet my fate, where it waited for me exactly as it promised.
One woman asks I. Bathroom line
I explain
I tell her thank you for reaotiehf my faith in human curiosity
I stood in the bathroom line, breathalyzing myself and giggling. The woman ahead of me asked something along the lines of, “Is that a breathalyzer?”
Finally. After one drink, an order of chicken fingers, a high five, one pint of Blue Bell, countless (because I could no longer count) breathalyzer readings and eight or nine innings, someone had asked what on earth I was doing. I remember trying my best to explain, but the words wouldn’t quite come out in the order I wanted. I do remember going on about how upset I was that no one had seemed curious. I believe I thanked her repeatedly for asking.
If a stranger in a bathroom line had told me I restored her faith in human curiosity, I might have been relieved when it was finally my turn for a stall.
I believe I meant “I love everyone.” Usually, I do not love everyone.
Maybsqgwne rbeyee bad el tiempo kidde cap
It took me a while to figure out what this meant, but I think I meant: Maybe, El Tiempo could offer a kiddie cup.
When I woke up in the morning, I discovered I was so drunk that I didn’t even notice a Yordan Alvarez home run. The Astros lost the game anyway. As the season draws to what threatens to be an ignominious close, we might all need at least one El Tiempo marg in our hand.
I’d ventured in part to test an urban legend — the supposed exceptional strength of the El Tiempo ballpark marg — and I’d failed. That particular experiment was doomed from the start. I can only say that it was potent for me. But because you need more than one subject to test a hypothesis, I suggested to several colleagues that we all go get margs and breathalyze ourselves. Some seemed eager. Others didn’t care to have a numeric measure of their alcohol tolerance.
Even so, I think I understand the buzz better. I joined the line and have my own story to tell. I found permission to be silly without judgment. And the human connection I was looking for wasn’t in the drink. Maybe it was up to me, this whole time, to thank a curious stranger or declare “I love ewbegeieb.” Maybe this part of me was only ever just one margarita away.
I raised my glass in … triumph? Despair? Something? But, I finished, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to when I started.
Sarah Smith