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May June 2021

Pulque: Another Ancient Mexican Beverage

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By Julie Etra

We’ve all heard of, and no doubt tried, tequila and mezcal, which are made from the piña (heart) of the agave cactus. There are many varieties of agave in Mexico (called “maguey” locally). Tequila can be made only from Agave tequilana weber, while mezcal is made from any variety – and often from several varieties of agave at once. Agave salmiana and Agave americana grow throughout the Valley of Oaxaca. Until recently, the salmiana was identified as the species from which another traditional fermented drink – pulque – was made; botanists now identify Agave atrovirens as the variety the pulqueros (pulque makers) call “maguey pulquero” – the pulqueros, of course, are not as fussy as the botanists, and make pulque, like mezcal, from any number of different varieties.

Pulque comes from the sap of the stem of the maguey pulquero, as opposed to the heart used to produce tequila and mezcal. The liquid is called aguamiel (honey water). When the agave matures, which takes from 8 to 15 years, depending on the variety, the central “leaves,” called meyolote, are removed to prevent the plant from blooming. The resultant circular shallow pad, where the sap concentrates, oozes the aguamiel, which is then extracted with a hollowed-out gourd called an acocote (from the Náhuatl word acocohitli) by a tlachiquero (person who extracts the liquid). Once or twice a day a scraping tool called an otomio is used to enhance the process as the plant continues to exude more aguamiel. The tlachiquero pours the aguamiel into a vat for fermentation, which begins as soon as the aguamiel is exposed to air. The plant will continue producing aguamiel – up to 1,000 liters, about 264 gallons – until it dries up and dies. In between harvests, the pad is covered with pencas (maguey leaves) and rocks to protect it from wildlife, insects, rain, bacteria, etc.

Sometimes a small tree branch known as a timbre was placed in the vat of aguamiel to speed up fermentation, especially during cold weather. Word has it that other materials get added, including meat wrapped in a sock (no thanks!). Hibiscus, lime (cal) from corn processing, seeds, and roots were sometimes added to thicken the liquid. Although some of the materials used in the process have changed over the centuries, such as plastic buckets in place of gourds to collect the aguamiel, the basic processes have not changed. To cut the pencas and scratch the pad, the pre-Hispanic pulqueros fashioned knives from volcanic obsidian mined in the vicinity of Puebla (crossing the altiplano in Puebla, you can see the volcanic “twins” Popocatépetl and Iztaccihuatl – the former is still erupting).

Pre-Hispanic Pulque

Before the Spanish conquest, aguamiel was consumed in the central valleys of the kingdom of the Nahuatl-speaking Mexica (later known as Azteca), by the Maya in the Yucatán, and in the region known as the Huasteca (present-day Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Puebla, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro and Guanajuato). In addition to its intoxicating characteristics, it was also used by some peoples as an enema. It was essential in certain pre-Hispanic rituals and central to several legends.

According to these myths, one of the creator Gods, Quetzalcoatl, sacrificed a young maiden, Mayahuel, who was reborn as the maguey deity to endow humans with the sustenance from her body. An extensive and complex symbolic system connects pulque with the moon, the underworld, rain, fertility, agriculture, and sacrifice. It is said that Mayahuel determined the method of extraction of the aguamiel, while Patecatl, the Aztec god of healing and fertility, the discoverer of peyote, and the “lord of the root of pulque,” figured out the fermentation process.

Who was allowed to drink this beverage of the gods in pre-Hispanic times? The royalty and high society, of course, but also elderly people, including women, and even soldiers, but perhaps only on particular occasions, as depicted in the Mural of the Drinkers (Mural de los Bebedores) one of the most notable works of art addressing the consumption of pulque. This great mural, approximately 60 meters long and covering the façade of a building in Cholula, Puebla, dates to approximately 200 AD. It is basically a depiction of a borcachera (binge, or drinking party). Besides the 164 guests and servants, participants include a pair of dogs and a monkey. Other extensive murals can be found in Teotihuacán, the pyramid city south of CDMX. Abundant pulque artifacts, including crocks and cups from which the beverage was imbibed, sculptures, nose rings, chest plates, and opossum-shaped urns – the opossum was supposed to have discovered pulque by scratching at the agave and drinking the sap – were found throughout pulque production sites.

And Then What Happened with Pulque?

The story of pulque after the Spanish conquest is totally different. The rituals and religious practices associated with consumption of pulque only remained in certain indigenous communities, while regular drinking of pulque became widespread among all social classes. Pulquerías (pulque cantinas) became common and flourished in the 19th century, particularly in Mexico City and surrounding areas. Paintings from the 18th century and historical photographs from the early 20th century show people drinking in the streets and in bars in Mexico City. There are advertisements for pulque from the haciendas of the Llanos de Apan in the state of Hidalgo, where pulque production was common. The mid-20th century saw a decline, as the popularity of other beverages such as beer increased, but it has recently seen a resurgence in interest and consumption. In fact, I found Pulque by Llanos de Apan, the only bottled pulque, for sale on Facebook, What’s App, and YouTube.

If you visit Mexico City on your way to Oaxaca or Huatulco, you’ll have no trouble giving it a try. There’s a 106-year-old pulquería in the Centro Histórico called Pulquería las Duelistas, the Pulquería los Insurgentes, Pulquería La Hija de los Apaches, and so on and on. They serve the brightly fizzy milk-white traditional pulque, but curados, “doctored” or flavored drinks, are more popular. At La Hija de los Apaches, you can get a curado made with melon, tomato, guayaba, blackberry, coconut, passion fruit, celery, oysters, or, of course, Viagra. Or so they say on the menu.

I, for one, have never tasted it, and have not yet seen it available on the coast. My hubby told me it was quite popular in Jalisco when he was there a few decades ago, and recalled a mucilaginous texture (think kombucha). His companions assured him it had medicinal properties and was/is a beneficial cure for cruda, or hangover.

Huatulco does have other locally fermented, readily available beverages such as tepache, which is made from pineapple juice. You can try tepache at Tepache Felix, at the southwest corner of highway 200 on the way to Copalita. Tepache Felix is owned by Felix Ramos, father of Cornelio Ramos, the well-known Huatulco bird guide. It is delicious and surprisingly strong.

For more technical information on pulque production check the publications of Eye writer Alvin Starkman:

https://www.oaxacamezcaltours.com/mezcalarticles/pulque-aguamiel-in-oaxaca-even-locals-rarely-witness-the-harvest

https://theeyehuatulco.com/2016/04/04/a-primer-on-pulque-harvesting-aguamiel/

In Mexico City, you can not only make the rounds of the pulquerías, you can visit a pulque ranch north of the city: https://www.viator.com/tours/Mexico-City/Pulque-Ranch-Day-Trip-in-Tepotzotlan/d628-40687P2.

For hispanoparlantes, the journal Arqueología Mexicana, ran a special edition (#78) on “Un Don Divino: El Pulque” (A Gift Divine: Pulque) in February 2018. It is an excellent read; you can get a copy for 98 pesos on their website: https://raices.com.mx/tienda/revistas-el-pulque-ES078.

May June 2021

Mexican Beer: Born, Bred, and Bought Back by Europe

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By Deborah Van Hoewyk

Just waiting for a chance to sink your beach chair into the hot sand, peer out at the blue, blue ocean, and admire the green of the lime in the neck of your Corona Extra? And, at the holidays, don’t forget Modelo’s great bock beer Noche Buena, the label adorned by another Mexican native, the poinsettia.

Oh, oops, Mexican beer hasn’t been native for quite a while. The commercial beer brands we think of as Mexican are all produced by two major corporations – Grupo Modelo and Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma. They effectively divide up Mexico’s beer market, 60% Modelo, 40% Cuauhtémoc; Cuauhtémoc is closing the gap. Together, they control 90% of the domestic market. Mexico is the largest beer exporter, and the fifth-largest beer producer, in the world. After gobbling up any number of other Mexican breweries to achieve their status, however, the two in turn have been consumed by European-owned Anheuser-Busch and Heineken, respectively.

Anheuser-Busch, St. Louis, Missouri? Teams of Clydesdales rescuing puppies in Super Bowl commercials? Not really, since 2008, Anheuser-Busch has been a division of AB InBev, or Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, headquartered in Leuven, Belgium. It is the largest beer brewer in the world, with a “product portfolio” of over 500 brands. When Anheuser-Busch became part of AB InBev, it already owned 50% of Grupo Modelo, and bought the rest in 2012. In 2020, AB InBev sales were valued at $52.3 billion USD.

Headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Heineken was founded in 1864. After acquiring smaller breweries around the world (it owns 164 in 70 countries), Heineken is the second-largest beer brewer in the world and the largest in Europe. It acquired Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma, by then known as FEMSA (Fomento Económico Mexicano, SA), in 2010. In 2020, Heineken sales were valued at $26.8 billion USD.

The Beginning of Beer in Mexico

As noted elsewhere in this issue, fermented, i.e., alcoholic, beverages were around long before the Spanish took over. Tesgüino, or izquiate, was beer made from sprouted corn, in the eastern Sierra Madre; you can still find it in rural north and west Mexico. Some think it is the origin recipe for tepache, a lightly fermented pineapple beer (see “Pulque: Another Ancient Mexican Beverage” elsewhere in this issue for where to get tepache in Huatulco). Pozol, originally called pochotl in Nahuatl, was made from fermented corn mash rolled up into a dough and then dissolved in water along with unsweetened cacao beans; nowadays, it is made throughout Tabasco, Chiapas, and eastward into Belize, although it is sweetened with honey or sugar.

There was wine made from prickly pear, mesquite, or cornstalks in the altiplano and eastward towards Veracruz; pulque in south-central Mexico (see the “Pulque” article); bakbé, or fermented honey, favored by the Maya in the Yucatán and southeastern Mexico; and various other fermented fruit drinks, serveral made from the small native plums you can find in season at Huatulco’s fruit and vegetable stores.

With the Spanish arrival, however, beer became grain-based, using barley in the beginning. Barley was pretty scarce in Mexico at that point, although a man named Alfonso de Herrero received the first official concession to make European beer and started fields of wheat and barley somewhere south or east of Mexico City. The Spanish placed severe restrictions and taxes on anything involved with beer production, hoping on the one hand to keep what little there was for themselves, and on the other hand to restrict the privilege – and resulting inebriation – from the natives. They also wanted to make colonial beer so expensive it would not be exported to Europe, requiring the Spanish colonists to import their beer from the homeland.

The European Redesign of Mexican Beer

When the War of Independence (1810-21) freed Mexico from Spain, Mexico got rid of the regulations and “let beer be beer.” Herrero’s brewery had struggled and eventually collapsed, but at the beginning of the 19th century, European-style beer had gained a foothold. There are records of disputes over the rights to brew beer among an English firm (Gillons and Mairet) and two Mexican outfits run by Miguel Ramos Arizpe and Justino Tuallion. During the War of Independence, Tuallion’s beer brand Hospice of the Poor, named for the homeless shelter down the street from his brewery, was the most popular.

After the war, in 1845, Bernhard Bolgard from Switzerland set up the first Mexican lager brewery, La Pila Seca, in Mexico City. He also made a dark beer that included piloncillo (those brown-sugar cones you see in the market).

The real growth in Mexican brewing was actually kicked off by another effort at conquest. In the 1860s, while America was busy with its civil war, European powers (France, Spain, and Britain), to whom Mexico owed beaucoup bucks, invaded. Spain and England quickly realized that France actually wanted to reconquer and colonialize Mexico, so they dropped out; France established the short-lived (three years, 1864-67) Second Mexican Empire, putting Austrian arch-duke Maximilian in charge as Emperor.

Bad for Max, who was executed as Benito Juárez re-assumed leadership of the Republic of Mexico, but good for beer, as apparently Max never went anywhere without his two German brewmasters, who were particularly good at darker beers. And more Austrians and Germans who followed Maximilian brought their brewing skills – particularly in brewery construction – with them, and they stayed. In 1865, Agustín Marendaz, also from Switzerland, opened Cervecería Toluca y México; in 1869 (Emperor Max was dead and gone), Emil Dercher, from the Alsace region in France, set up Cervecería La Cruz Blanca and made lagers.

Juárez’s successor, Porfirio Díaz, infatuated with all things European, encouraged more German immigration. Under Díaz, the railroads came to Mexico, which was a mixed bag for Mexican brewing. Brewers could import heavy machinery and large supplies of malt, but on the same trains came cases full of competition – U.S. beer seeking to break into the Mexican market. Competition breeds competence, though, and the railroad may well be a key factor in the industrialization of beer-making in Mexico.

In Mérida, José Ponce Solis opened the Cervecería Yucateca in 1869, and José María Ponce opened the Gran Cervecería Yucateca in 1886; the latter eventually made Carta Clara, León, Cruz Roja, Estrella, and Mestiza beers. José M. Otahegui and Juan Fouillox opened the Gran Cervecería de San Luis in 1882; Fouilloux was a French brewer who had his equipment sent over from Paris. The first two large-scale, commercial/industrial breweries were Cervecería Cuauhtémoc (Monterrey, 1890) and Cervecería Moctezuma (Orizaba, 1891). Cervecería del Pacifico opened in Mazatlán in 1901, launching with the still-popular Pacifico pilsener.

At the close of the Mexican Revolution (1910-20), Mexico had 36 breweries of substantial size, and the number continued to grow. In 1922, Braulio Iriarte Goyeneche came over from Spain and started Cervecería Modelo; by 1925, the brewery was making Modelo, Negra Modelo, and Corona. New breweries opened at the Baja border, e.g., Cervecería de Ensenada (1915), Cervecería Azteca (1921) and Mexícali (1923) as the U.S. imposed prohibition (1920-33), causing Americans to flock to the border to buy beer. The government started providing incentives and investments to the brewing industry, resulting in production of almost 50,000 liters (over 13,000 gallons, or 140,896 12-oz bottles) in 1925.

Still, the Mexicans themselves seemed to prefer pulque. Back in the old country, the techniques of immigrant German brewers had been governed by Reinheitsgebot, or beer purity regulations, since the 16th century, so they launched a propaganda campaign. Using the “purity card” and the idea of modern, sanitary breweries, they claimed beer was “rigorously hygienic and modern,” while pulque was made using poop to kick off fermentation. The reputation of pulque plummeted, and beer emerged triumphant.

Consolidating the Beer Industry

With breweries popping up right and left, the industry started slip-sliding towards the two giants left today. In 1954, Cuauhtémoc bought Tecate, founded in 1944 in Baja California, and turned it into a national brand. Cuauhtémoc also innovated by making Tecate the first beer to come in cans in Mexico (Tecate is now the #1 canned brand imported to the U.S.)

In 1985, the Cuauhtémoc and Moctezuma breweries merged, becoming Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma, then FEMSA, by 1988. Their combined national brands were Tecate, Sol, Dos Equis, Carta Blanca, Superior, Indio, and Bohemia.

The Cervecería Cuauhtémoc had always had interests besides beer. They were the first to integrate vertically, i.e., to start other divisions that supplied the glass bottles, the packaging, etc.; in 1943, the three wealthy families behind Cuauhtémoc founded Monterrey Tec, “Mexico’s MIT” (Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey) and in 1973 opened the Mexican Professional Baseball Hall of Fame on the grounds of company headquarters. Thus the story of Grupo Modelo gives a better picture of what happened to Mexico’s cervecerías on their path to becoming two huge multinational corporations.

In 1928, six years after the Cervecería Modelo broke ground and three years after it opened, it sold 8 million bottles of beer. In 1933, as prohibition ended, the cervecería sent off the first exports of Mexican beer. When it hit the ten-year mark, it bought Cervecería de Toluca y México, acquiring the brands Victoria and Pilsener. During World War II, Modelo concentrated its efforts on strengthening its national sales, following up with building new factories.

In 1954, Modelo bought Cervecería del Pacífico (Mazatlán) and Cervecería La Estrella (Guadalajara). In 1967, it liquidated Compañía Cervecera de la Laguna to form Cervecería Modelo de Torreón; in 1979, it bought Cervecería Yucateca in Mérida.

Using its own engineering designs, it opened new plants in Sonora (1961), Jalisco (1964), Oaxaca (1984), Zacatecas (1997). In 1982, Cervecería Modelo became Grupo Modelo, with the Corona, Negra Modelo, Modelo Especial, and Pacifico as export beers, and Victoria, Leon, and Montejo for the national market.

Becoming as large and as successful at exporting beer as they did, made FEMSA and Grupo Modelo very attractive targets for first cooperative partnerships, then stock exchanges and purchases, and eventually takeovers by the European beer giants. The two companies still make their beer in Mexico, they still exert major influence on Mexico’s economy, they are (despite some labor frictions) major employers, and their brands are essential to Mexico’s commercial identity, easily understood and much appreciated by foreigners. Nonetheless, Mexico’s commercial beers are a bit routinized for both locals and visitors who have developed “beer palates” that weary of the light lagers and pilseners, and don’t find the ambars and oscuros quite dark enough.

Microbreweries to the Rescue

While microbreweries and craft beers are not common in Mexico, they are starting to sprout up. Some recall the first microbrewery being Pepe’s y Joe’s in Mazatlán in the 1990s, but it seems long gone. Of perhaps more interest to beer aficionados are artisanal craft beers.

Let’s start with Minerva, because their products can even be bought at Super Che, at least before the pandemic. Headquartered in Zapopan, Jalisco, Minerva offers a variety of lagers, ales, and a stout. Colonial is a smooth, golden, wheat-malted beer with citrus notes and 5% alcohol. Viena is a red/ambar, with clean notes of nuts and caramel, low fermentation and a malty taste, again 5% alcohol. They also put out some seasonal brands. Founded in 2003, they have a 30% market share.

Baja California hosts half a dozen microbreweries. Baja Brewing, started by a young expat named Jordan Gardenhire, sells its beer in stores and in brew pubs (three in Los Cabos). Gardenhire left Colorado for Baja when he hadn’t decided what to do with his life. His dad came to visit. Ever since, they’ve been brewing craft beers. They offer Cabotella, a blonde ale; Peyote Pale Ale (called IPA Por Favor in the U.S.); Escorpion Negro, a black ale, and an oatmeal stout, among others. Founded in 2007, Baja Brewing has begun exporting to the U.S. You can watch Jordan explain how to start a craft brewery on YouTube
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqwcPG6xLtY).

Also in Baja, in Ensenada, Agua Mala Cerveza Artesanal started up in 2009, and makes eco-environmental practices an essential part of the way it does business, always working on making each step in the process more sustainable, building their tasting room out of repurposed cargo containers, and serving fresh, local ingredients on the tasting room menu. Their brands include Sirena (a Pilsener), Vieja (amber lager), Mantis (a wheat beer), Mako (pale ale), Marea Roja (red IPA), Mantarraya (oatmeal stout), and Astillero (an imperial IPA). AguaMala has sent a few of its entries across the border to Arizona.

There are other craft breweries in Baja, Monterrey, Colima, Querétaro, México state, Mexico City, and Puebla – it won’t be long before you’ll have no trouble getting a handcrafted beer, ale, porter, or stout to suit your taste wherever you are in Mexico.

2021, February 2021

The New Global Love Affair with a Mexican Spirit

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By Alvin Starkman, M.A., J.D.

Not since the advent of the Margarita in the mid-20th century, has the world been taken by storm by a Mexican alcoholic beverage – but here we are, in the age of mezcal. Of course, we still have tequila, and there are now other spirits being exported from Mexico, including rum and whisky. But it’s mezcal, tequila’s older sister and also an agave distillate, that is receiving global attention. But why, aside from the internet, which reshapes our universe second by second?

Here are a few thoughts.

  1. It all began around 1995, with the arrival of two brands, Del Maguey and Scorpion. The former aimed at attracting a select imbibing audience, that is, spirits aficionados, while the latter sought to pique the interest of mainstream America. Over the past quarter century each has spawned a plethora of other mezcal brands.
  2. It’s been in large part due to the portrayed romanticism of every step of the process: indigenous Mexicans harvesting agave hearts (piñas) from the field by hand and transporting them to their family distilleries on the sides of mules; converting carbohydrates to sugars through baking the agave in a rudimentary pit over firewood and rocks; crushing by hand using a mallet or employing a beast of burden to drag a limestone wheel over the caramelized piñas; standing over wooden vats while the environmental yeasts work to ferment; then finally the smoke billowing into the sky from the wood fueling clay or copper stills. Over those 25 years, and in many instances, industrialization has crept into the process. Some of those big commercial brand owners in fact mislead by representing their methods as those of an era long past. The consuming public eats – or rather, drinks – it up.
  3. The last decade has witnessed a cocktail trade explosion, with mezcal brand owners seeking to capitalize on it by introducing lower-priced agave distillates that restaurant and bar owners can afford to use. We still have those Margaritas, Negronis and the rest, but mezcal is now being introduced as the spirit of choice in their making. Brands, distributors and bartenders work feverishly to develop and promote new cocktails using mezcal as the liquor of choice.
  4. A surfeit of entrepreneurs recognizes the popularity of mezcal, and seeks to capitalize on faddism: alcohol distributors are anxious to represent a brand; restaurateurs are opening mezcalerías; well-known figures in the entertainment industry who want even more recognition are interested in having their names associated with their own or others’ brands; and residents of countries south and north of Mexico, and on the other side of both the Atlantic and the Pacific, are hiring marketing consultants to assist in new brand development.
  1. Over the past several years, multinational corporations – each with an already well-established global reach – have been buying up popular brands of mezcal that continue to be made using traditional means of production. Mezcaleros who have elected to sell their brands did not have the resources to enable them to reach many countries. Not only is mezcal now arriving in far-off lands such as China, New Zealand, Argentina and the Yukon, but the big guns have the financial ability to promote the spirit.
  2. There’s an abundance of money in the pockets of consumers. Despite COVID-19, today a growing middle and upper class has more disposable income than ever before. Both dotcom youths and the older hippie generation now retiring, with their debts paid off and their flock flown the nest, are flush. The former no doubt want to enjoy their wealth, the latter grew up with The Beatles, Iron Butterfly and Jethro Tull, worshipping organic production, Birkenstocks, The Whole Earth Catalog and everything else representing “back to the earth.” Both have the capacity and in many cases the desire to spend $350 US for a bottle of mezcal de pechuga distilled in clay.

There are of course other reasons for the meteoric rise in popularity of mezcal, and some might disagree with this enumeration, but the one point that garners universal consensus is the increasing popularity of the Mexican agave distillate, with a strong likelihood that our love affair with mezcal will continue for decades to come.

Alvin Starkman operates Mezcal Educational Excursions of Oaxaca (www.mezcaleducationaltours.com), and has been playing his part in advancing mezcal’s global popularity.

2021, January 2021

Resourcefulness and Ingenuity in Clay Pot Mezcal Distillation

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By Alvin Starkman, M.A., J.D.

When I read about the Year of the Ox, it reminded me of the resourcefulness and ingenuity of the hardworking Oaxacans who make mezcal. Why? Because not only is a team of oxen used to plow the earth, but the team is sometimes employed to transport agave hearts (piñas) from field to traditional family-operated distillery (palenque), or to crush them after baking. There’s no need to buy a horse or mule when you already have animals capable of doing multiple tasks. And their waste makes excellent fertilizer.

The start-up costs of building a clay pot (olla de barro) palenque in Oaxaca involve relatively little monetary outlay. However, the ongoing upkeep expenses have the potential to be out of reach for many distillers (palenqueros) of modest means … but for their ingenuity, resourcefulness, and sustainable practices.

Most clay pots used in Oaxacan mezcal production are produced in the town of Santa María Atzompa. They are made with locally sourced clay, water, and fire, and thus their cost is relatively modest, perhaps 800 pesos for the two receptacles required to make one still.

The housing that encases the bottom clay pot is made from clay and/or adobe bricks and mud, and nothing more. The adobe is made by mixing sand, mud, bovine and/or equine manure, and waste agave fiber (bagazo) discarded after distillation. Bagazo is often also used as compost or mulch, and when dampened, is typically employed in the baking process to insulate the piñas from the hot rocks.

Firewood goes at the bottom of the baking pit. Not straight logs the lumberjack sells at a premium to lumber yards, but rather seconds that the distillery is happy to acquire at a discount. Once the bake has been completed, where there once was firewood there is now charcoal. It is used a fertilizer to grow more agave (or other crops), or by the family for cooking and for sale.

Even the discarded agave leaves (pencas), once dried, have an important use as fuel. Entire Oaxacan communities live off them to cook tortillas, grill meats, make hot chocolate, and more.

Clay distillation pots last from roughly a couple of weeks to a year and a half, after which time they must be replaced. The bottom pot, as opposed to the upper clay cylinder, presents the more significant problem.

Once it cracks, the housing must be disassembled, the pot removed, a new one inserted, and the encasement re-built. The life of that bottom olla is extended by using a wooden tree branch shaped like a fork, its prongs joined with rope or wire, and not a metal pitch fork, to remove the bagazo.

Still, through cracking, clay pots are inevitably rendered unusable for their primary purpose. When that happens the fermented liquid or the subsequent single distillate can seep out and be lost. The damaged and discarded pots are frequently used as planters, but that bottom pot can still be used in the fermentation process. Most baked crushed agave is fermented in wood slat vats, but some palenqueros ferment in clay pots partially embedded in the ground. After a damaged pot has been removed from the still, it can be repaired with cement and used for fermenting; a broken olla de barro gets new life.

For clay-pot distillation to work, a continuous flow of cold water is required. It often arrives along a makeshift wooden trough, falling into the small conical condenser through a length of giant river reed (carrizo). Carrizo is an invasive wild plant, but it has multiple uses, including in the olla de barro distillation process. Carrizo is also sometimes employed to guide the water out of the condenser, and the distillate out of the still into a holding receptacle. Yet another use for the reed is as a bellows to stoke the flame under the clay pot during distillation. Some palenqueros purchase waste from a lumberyard de-barking process as fuel for their stills. The bark always includes some attached wood.

Long ago palenqeros used clay condensers in the distillation process. When metal became available, they switched. Originally, they used simple laminated metal, and some still do, although more recently stainless steel or copper have appeared. Some palenqueros have even adapted old aluminum construction worker hardhats. The shape is about the same, and with a little work they are almost as efficient as the others. When I visited a distillery in the town of Sola de Vega in 2012, the palenquero was still using hard hats as condensers!

Steam rises, hits the condenser, then the drops of liquid must fall onto something which then guides the liquid to the exterior of the cylinder, through the carrizo, down into the container. That something is typically a hand-hewn wooden spoon, or a small length of penca. The condenser is sealed to the upper cylinder, which is sealed in turn to the lower olla de barro, not with glue, but rather a paste that forms naturally on top of the fermentation vessel.

When the still is not in use, many palenqueros prefer keeping the opening underneath, into which firewood is placed to produce flame, closed off. Some state they don’t want young children playing hide-and-seek in the sooty and sometimes still hot orifice. Others don’t want their chickens laying eggs inside. A palenquero friend in Santa Catarina Minas keeps the opening closed using old metal discs from a plow.

I noted earlier the modest start-up costs for establishing a palenque for olla de barro distillation, and touched on the cost of the clay pots. The additional installations in clay (as well as copper) operations are almost free of out-of-pocket costs aside from labor: the baking pit in the ground, the ability to crush by hand using a wooden mallet and nothing more, and fermenting in an animal hide, a wood-lined hole in the ground or directly in a bedrock cavity.

The innate creativity of the palenquero distilling in clay is remarkable. And while we must admire his resourcefulness, it’s crucial that we not begrudge him for making technological advancements with a view to making life just a little easier, as his economic lot in life improves. Should not the romanticism we seek in rural Oaxaca sometimes take a back seat? The palenquero will retain most of his sustainable practices and continue to be resourceful, but surely deserves a break.

Alvin Starkman operates Mezcal Educational Excursions of Oaxaca (www.mezcaleducationaltours.com).