A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

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Day 6 - Part 3 - Pulque-making Hacienda & Tlaxco
2/16/07

The purpose of our second Hacienda of the day, located near Tlaxco in the far northern part of Tlaxcala state, was the production of pulque, the revolting fermented cactus juice, in the traditional way. The hacienda structure was a far cry from the traditional Mexican/Spanish elegance of La Laguna. This was more of a mini-brewery in a traditional (if very colorful) adobe building, surrounded by high walls. The living areas were not visible from where we were, and the walled area was strewn with crumbling bricks and rusty farm implements and vehicles. This walled area was surrounded by fields of maguey, the cactus (or agave, according to the nitpickers over at Wikipedia) from which the raw "honey water" is harvested. Mezcal and tequila are also made from this plant, though the latter seem to be made from the heart of the maguey rather than just its juice.

Luck continued to be with us -- on our way up the drive we happened upon a ranch worker in the process of siphoning out the juice from a large maguey, using a bright blue fiberglass device shaped like a rounded, oversized horn. He would stick the smaller end into the center of the cactus where a bowl had been created, scrape out the excess vegetable matter, then suck on a hole in the round end of the horn. After plugging the smaller hole at the bottom, he would walk over to his burrow and empty the liquid into one of his two barrels. The worker was very friendly and helpful, particularly considering he reportedly got paid by how much he could harvest during the day, and we were pretty much burning up his time.

The pulqueria itself was a bit lacking in food production hygiene standards, though I guess the fermentation process may vanquish all ills. The smell when the doors were opened damned near knocked us over. Fermentation apparently smells similar the world over - we felt like we were in a particularly poorly ventilated brewery. At one end was a festive shrine to the Virgin (patron saint of booze?) and the rest was lined with vats of various types, fiberglass, cowhide (still furry!) and wood, in which the maguey juice was placed at various points in the month-long fermentation process. Pulque was once the alcoholic beverage of choice in Mexico, indeed it has been around for a thousand years. Ruben reported that his grandmother drank it every day and lived to the age of 92 in perfect health. But World War II, and the return of soldiers who had developed a taste for beer, eventually put paid to the age of pulque. Now beer is the predominant beverage, and pulque, which is difficult to store and preserve, is very much on the wane.

The hacendado of the pulque hacienda could not have been a greater contrast to The Mustache. We waited around for ten minutes before one of the workers clued us in that the grizzled geezer in the cowboy hat leaning against the pickup was not an elderly farmhand but the owner of the establishment. He clearly needed attitude and costume tips from his opposite number at La Laguna.

We did, of course, try the pulque in both its raw honey water and fermented forms. Straight out of the maguey it was sweet and mostly tasteless. Fermented it was sweet and mostly revolting, with the added detriment of being a bit stringy. A and D immediately re-thought their plans to bring some pulque back to their husbands.

The remainder of the day was punctuated by aborted efforts -- we were unable to find the lady who sold silver out of her house in Tlaxco, any open restaurants on the Tlaxco plaza, or a useful pharmacy. On the more successful side, we got the GSM celle phone to work finally (it helps to use the correct prefixes when making your calls) and we visited the Gigante supermarket, at which I marveled at the vast amount of cooking oil and A purchased the most expensive tube of Banana Boat sunblock in North America.

Pulque Harvesting:


Tlaxco:

posted by Katy at 2:25 PM