Scenes From The Lime Crisis

March 29: “As a result of high prices and rampant lawlessness in some Mexican regions, criminals who may be linked to drug gangs are plundering fruit from groves and hijacking trucks being used for export… While it is ironic that the current lime crisis may in some part be blowback from our own drug policies, it is crucial to remember that a few months of inconvenience to American margarita lovers is trifling compared with the anguish of Mexicans whose livelihoods and lives have been destroyed.”

April 1: “Hard times in Margaritaville: skyrocketing lime prices slam Mexican restaurants and bars. Cartel violence in the Mexican state of Michocan, plus floods and tree disease, have driven costs of the green citrus to an all-time high.”

April 21: “A nationwide surge in the price of limes has squeezed one of Brooklyn’s most famous pie shops that relies on the tart fruit.”

April 21: “And so, with the brutal winter finally breaking, the limepocalypse has set off a full-scale panic for bartenders and restaurant owners, with a lime black market of sorts popping up around the city. Some are adding a dollar or two to the cost of a margarita; other spots are taking the hike on the chin, hoping prices drop soon. ‘People are basically claiming to be citrus drug dealers,’ says Noel, only half-joking: Bartenders report friends from around the country are posting pictures on Facebook of limes wrapped and labeled in plastic bags like pounds of cocaine.”