pulque

Pulque, or octli, is an alcoholic beverage made from the fermented juice of the maguey, and is a traditional native beverage of Mesoamerica. Though it is commonly believed to be a beer, the main carbohydrate is a complex form of fructose rather than starch.

A six pack of pulque.

The maguey plant is not a cactus (as has sometimes been mistakenly suggested) but an Agave, believed to be the species salmiana, subspecies salmiana. The plant was one of the most sacred plants in Mexico and had a prominent place in religious rituals and Mesoamerican industry.

History

Monkey effigy jar for pulque, Aztec, AD 1200-1520, onyx marble, Dumbarton Oaks Museum, Washington, DC.

Pulque is depicted in Native American stone carvings from as early as AD 200. The origin of pulque is unknown, but because it has a major position in religion, many folk tales explain its origins. According to one pre-Columbian legendary account, during the reign of Tecpancaltzin, a Toltec noble named Papantzin discovered the secret of extracting aguamiel from the maguey plant. Prior to the Spanish conquest, the Aztecs consumed it at religious ceremonies.^[1]

Jars for pulque were frequently given the shape of a monkey to reflect the inebriating effect of the beverage.

Production

A tlachiquero collecting maguey juice (1964, Hidalgo, Mexico)

Pulque La Lucha

A Pulqueria (pulque bar) on Plaza Garibaldi in Mexico City.

Plants take eight to ten years to reach maturity. The man who harvests the juice of the Maguey is called a tlachiquero. You can recognize a tlachiquero easily: He will be leading a donkey with a small wooden barrel for the juice on each side of its pack saddle. He will have a long necked gourd for siphoning the juice, called aguamiel, from the magueys and he will have a steel tool for digging a cavity in the magueys and scraping it. When the plant reaches maturity and is about to flower the tlachiquero stabs the top of the plant with a knife about 30 to 50 times where the flowering stalk would grow. This is called castrating the plant. This scars the bud and prevents flowering. The plant is then allowed to rest for a month or more which causes it to produce even more aguamiel. The scarred part is carved out to form a cavity which fills with juice. Each day the tlachiquero siphons out the aguamiel using a long gourd and scrapes out the cavity so more aguamiel will accumulate. The plant will produce aguamiel for as long as a month. The aguamiel is then fermented (usually in large barrels inside a building called a tinacal). Remarkably, the primary microorganism responsible for fermentation is not a yeast, but a bacterium (Zymomonas_mobilis). This microorganism is considered undesirable in most fermented beverages, but gives pulque it's unique flavor. Pulque is usually sold directly in bulk from the tinacal, or by serving it in a version of a cantina known as a pulquería. Traditionally in pulquerías pulque is served in a glass known as a tornillo (screw, for its shape) or a bowl known as a jícara.

Pulque is still made in Mexico today. However, because it cannot easily be stored or preserved (its character and flavor change over a short period of storage time, as little as a day), it is not well known outside the country. A process for preserving and canning pulque has been developed, and now canned pulque is being exported to the US in limited quantities (see photo); the alcohol content of the canned product is 6%. Aficionados of pulque usually consider the canned varieties to be inferior.

Often pulque is mixed with fruit juices such as mango and pineapple to render it palatable to those who do not care for its unusual flavor. In this case it is called a curado.

Mezcal is the name of a double-distilled spirit which also comes from the maguey plant. Today there are well defined and regulated regions (A.O.C.) for both mezcal and Tequila in Mexico. Tequila is a mezcal, made only from the blue agave plant, from the region of southwestern Mexico around the town of Tequila, Jalisco. Aguamiel (from which pulque is made) is the natural juice of the maguey plant, whereas mezcal is the clear spirit made out of the heart of the plant itself. The flavor is either bitter or sweet, depending on how one prefers it. If one enjoys it strong then it is drunk neat (or in its undiluted form), and if not a bit of honey is added.

In the Aztec pantheon of deities, pulque production was represented by the god of pulque, Tepoztecatl (he of Tepoztlan) and the gods of drunkenness, such as Macuil-Tochtli or Five Rabbit and Ometochtli or Two Rabbit, both part of the pantheon of Centzon Totochtin, the four hundred rabbit gods of drunkenness.

A tradition in pulquerías is for drinkers to slop a small amount of the pulque in their glass on the floor as a sacrifice to Two Rabbit.

See also

• Chicha
• Cauim
• Agave syrup

References

External links

• Interesting article on the pulqueras of Apan and Zempoala in Mexico (in Spanish)
• Pulque on tequilamescal.com
• Pulque La Lucha
• Documentary about Pulque

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