The Drink of the Gods: An Introduction to Pulque

“What’s additional Mexican than pulque?”

Arturo Garrido Aldana asks me this question over the din of the group at Pulqueria las Duelistas, his century-old pulqueria positioned in Mexico’s Centro Histórico. Behind him, employees ladle out diversified flavors of the usual drink into outsized Styrofoam and plastic cups, handing them over to prepared patrons. On the doorway of the mural-covered room, a swamp cooler emits its sustained drone, indiscernible beneath the music pounding from the audio system. Proper right here, throughout the center of Mexico’s capital, Garrido tells me pulque “is the heart of Mexico.”

Pulque is a pre-Hispanic beverage with a consistency reminiscent of kombucha, if kombucha had been constituted of okra. It’s about as alcoholic as beer, however it certainly’s constituted of the evenly fermented sap of the agave—the similar plant that’s used to make tequila and mezcal. The flavour, if you buy a mode for it, is intriguingly zingy. Pure, or plain, pulque is an opaque milky coloration nevertheless fizzy and good on the tongue. Sweet, nevertheless not cloying, evenly viscous nevertheless (assuming it’s modern) not slimy, and easily ever-so-subtly yeasty, similar to the whiff of freshly risen bread dough hitting the oven. Most places present every plain or pure pulque and curado, or flavored, variations, which temper the drink’s tang nevertheless not its texture. And for people who benefit from it, pulque lives as a lot as its reputation as a result of the drink of the Gods: refreshing and eye-opening, satisfying and comforting. Even to those who uncover the flavour or texture gross, it gives a comforting fullness (or, perhaps, that’s the sunshine buzz talking?).

Quick to Ferment, Quick to Perish

To provide pulque, the heart of a mature agave (maguey) plant is scale back out, making a cavity. The cavity is scraped, which induces the flow into of sap, often known as aguamiel, into the cavity, the place it would get collected. Whereas the tactic for making mezcal and tequila requires that aguamiel be cooked, pulque is made by naturally fermenting the raw product in a cask. The fermentation happens quickly, so quickly that the fermented liquid reaches its fizzy, low-alcohol final sort in a matter of hours.

The speedy fermentation is chargeable for 2 indelible traits of pulque: the most effective pulque is freshly made, and the drink doesn’t journey properly, every of which make it endemic to central Mexico. In consequence, its historic previous is fastidiously intertwined with the historic previous of the nation, from its pre-Hispanic origins to its current revival, and the various roles it has occupied are a reflection of that, too: It was believed to be the nectar of the gods; it turned the favored drink of emperors; additional not too way back, it was thought-about the scourge of the unwashed lots, which led to its colonial-era ban; and now, lastly, it has change right into a beverage cherished by old-timers and youthful hipsters alike. The story of pulque is rich, deep, and best taken in with a protracted, sluggish pulls from a cacariza, the pockmarked glass container that is as iconic in a pulqueria as a stein in a beer hall.

Pulque in Central Mexican Historic previous

Sooner than the tactic of distillation arrived in North America, pulque dominated the realm of central Mexico. A mural in Cholula often known as “Los Bebedores,” or “The Drinkers,” from 1000 CE gives the first confirmed proof of pulque, nevertheless scientific evaluation places its origin means again to 200 CE. Pulque was thought to be a gift from the gods: Mayahuel, goddess of maguey, gave pulque to the Aztecs, and it was a sip of pulque given to Quetzalcoatl by his brother, the god Tezcatlipoca, that intoxicated him and led him to abandon his celibacy, which in flip made him resolve to flee. (His return, in response to the legend, was to happen in a yr that coincided with the eventual arrival of Spanish colonizers.)

All through the Aztec interval, pulque was a sacred drink, a beverage reserved for the gods and their monks. When the Aztec empire fell, however, it turned a drink of the oldsters, produced broadly throughout the central Mexican highlands, and a big monetary driver throughout the area. All through the colonial interval, the Spanish Crown tried to outlaw pulque manufacturing, citing ties to non-Christian religions and claims that it triggered important properly being and social factors amongst indigenous of us. (Ironic, provided that many indigenous peoples thought-about it therapeutic.) Nevertheless the monetary vitality of maguey put an end to the prohibition in 1786: even in the middle of the ban, the Crown was gathering hundreds and hundreds of pesos in taxes on pulque.

By way of the Mexican Battle of Independence and the Mexican Revolution, pulque remained an crucial and valued beverage. However it was better than solely a drink: it was medicine, custom, and a significant moneymaker. The introduction of railways sped the perishable drink from the manufacturing haciendas throughout the hills into the valley of Mexico Metropolis and completely different cities, the place there was rising demand. In the direction of the tip of the nineteenth century, pulque was the first alcoholic drink and maguey manufacturing occupied an outsize place in Mexican agriculture. However, following the revolution, President Porfirio Díaz courted worldwide funding—along with from breweries, which ended up pitting pulque in direction of beer for drinkers’ pesos.

“Pulque,” says Mexico Metropolis–based meals and journey creator Arturo Torres Landa, “like many points in Mexico, is a story of resistance.” When beer received right here to Mexico, an aggressive promoting advertising marketing campaign, assisted by authorities efforts to increase native demand for beer, sought to repeat the colonial-era framing of pulque as dirty and low-class, the stuff of a rural backwater. “It was seen as primitive and rustic,” Torres explains, which made it less complicated for rumors to be unfold—sometimes assumed to originate from beer companies—that pulque was unhygienic and doubtless fermented with feces. Nevertheless the drink endured, rather a lot as a result of it had by means of the destruction of a implausible civilization and the crush of a colonial vitality.

Stylish Pulqueria Custom

Within the current day, similar to the dream of the Eighteen Nineties, pulque’s resurgence serves for instance of how all of the items earlier could also be new as soon as extra: at bars like Las Duelistas in Mexico Metropolis, three-day drunks bob their heads on the bar whereas youthful hipsters share pitchers. Garrido bought the 106-year-old bar 12 years prior to now out of his love for pulque. He’d been working in pulquerias given that ‘70s, and he heard enterprise at Las Duelistas was unhealthy and it might shut. So he bought it. “How may I not?” he requested. The pulque-drinking crowd appears like a jumble of people of all ages, nevertheless Torres says there’s a expertise missing—the one which lies between the youthful of us and hipsters who’ve fueled the drink’s revival and the older of us “who grew up consuming it favor it was water.”

Whereas you possibly can discover pulque someplace else—floating distributors throughout the canals of Xochimilco, at highway markets, and just about wherever that sells the pit-cooked lamb often known as barbacoa—the most effective alternative comes from pulquerias, they usually’re most really the ambiance that best demonstrates central Mexico’s distinctive customized of pulque. Because of the restricted transportation and the restricted area the place the agave grows, the drink stays pretty native to Mexico Metropolis and surrounding Mexico State, and the shut by states of Tlaxcala, Puebla, and Hidalgo. The brisker the pulque, the upper, cleaner, and further refreshing the flavour; the drink’s texture can be smoother when modern, as a result of it tends to develop additional viscous over time and may sort out an off-putting stringiness. For these causes, good pulque not typically makes it out of central Mexico, so consuming pulque in pulquerias in these parts not solely gives you a mode of the drink at its best however moreover an experience of the place it comes from.

Pulquerias are often barebones and lowbrow, the partitions pasted with pictures of scantily clad ladies, the flooring interminably sticky, they often not typically present one thing to eat other than bowls of suspect snacks. And however, many in Mexico Metropolis are embellished with murals, some depicting well-known figures in historic previous, others that honor pulque, its earlier, the way in which wherein it’s made, or how good it is to drink. In La Cátedral del Pulque, which has ladled out the drink since 1947 in Mexico Metropolis’s Obrero neighborhood, Torres elements out a mural that features David Alfaro Siqueiros as protagonist, a muralist updated of Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, and tried assassin of Leon Trotsky. One different wall displays an adaptation of Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam,” by which God pours pulque from his jicara, a standard consuming vessel constituted of a gourd, into one held out by Adam.

The historic previous and custom, along with the variety of drinks on present, make it worth in search of a wonderful pulqueria out. The bar at La Cátedral del Pulque hosts a group of open-topped glass jars, often known as vitroleros, each with a sign hanging spherical its neck to determine the flavour of the curados inside. On the day of my go to, La Cátedral supplied curados of celery, cranberry, oatmeal, pine nut; “angel’s kiss” (cherry, oatmeal, amaranth); and a tomato with oyster one which evoked Clamato and was served with a spicy salted rim.

A short distance away, Las Duelistas supplied, amongst others, a guava, blackberry, and purple wine pulque vaguely reminiscent of sangria. Drinkers get them organized by the small glass or the massive carafe, some stopping by the bar for a single cup and others lingering over plastic pitcher after plastic pitcher. Curados make for easy consuming and are overwhelmingly additional normal than plain pulque because of the means wherein they ameliorate frequent complaints regarding the drink’s off-flavors or slimy texture, even when these complaints are solely related to less-than-fresh pulque. On account of it must be modern, the pulque at Las Duelistas is on the market in from Tlaxcala, about two hours east of Mexico Metropolis, each single day at 3 a.m., at which degree the bar mixes up various of the 46 utterly completely different flavors it gives on rotation. It seems arduous to think about that this spot, not too way back so close to going out of enterprise, now sells as rather a lot as 900 liters of pulque in a single day.

Consuming pulque is a choice to reclaim a part of Mexican id that on a regular basis seems to be on the verge of being misplaced or forgotten. In describing his love for the drink and what it means to Mexicans and central Mexicans, Garrido seems to swell with delight on the quantity they promote, as if he, personally, in pouring out glasses of this drink, is handing the next expertise a piece of their id, one which’s uniquely tied to a plant that grows solely proper right here, one which will’t journey far with out struggling grievously in prime quality.

For the curious vacationers, the hipster locals, the older males alone on the bar with an outsized, chipped stein, each glass of pulque is considerably little little bit of Mexico. It helps company actually really feel close to the state of affairs, helps the long-timers have in mind earlier days, and helps the youth actually really feel associated to the earlier. The pulquerias all all through Mexico Metropolis, every new and former, ship what was as quickly because the drink of gods and emperors, then of the agricultural poor, to the town lots, one sip at a time.

February 2019