Tragona: what stuck to my ribs, pulled on my heartstrings, and got me in my feelings this month.

Fresh pulque “cured” with fresh raspberries at La Casa del Pulque en Santiago Matatlán

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Reina offers another pour. "El curado de frambuesa, por favor," I say with a corny grin. It's frothy and pink, faintly fizzing, with the subtle tang of fermentation and the almost vegetal fuzz of whole berries. It tastes like fields of raspberries, and it stays with me for days.

Reina Cortés is the pulque queen, a fifth-generation producer from Santiago Matatlán. Her maguey pulqueros (Agave americana var. oaxaquensis) take 25 years to reach maturity.  

The plant stays in the ground, while its central bud is removed and the core of the plant is scratched into causing it to "cry" a clear, sweet liquid called aguamiel. Every 12 hours, Reina returns to her agave to collect approx. 2.5 liters of sweet sap and to scratch the plant again, inciting another "weeping." This is a process that repeats for 3 months, or until the agave dries up.

At her shop in the center of town, Reina serves fresh aguamiel, young pulque (fermented for 1 to 2 days), aged pulque (fermented for more than three months in an oak barrel), curados (pulque whizzed with fresh fruit), and ceremonial tepache: made from honey (from bees) and aguamiel. It is the first drink served at weddings, Mayordomías, and other religious celebrations to kick off the festivities.

Long before the Spanish arrived, Mesoamericans drank pulque. Both an ancient beverage and a living artifact, pulque is always in motion: fermenting, unpasteurized, its making passed down from generation to generation. Over the centuries it has been prohibited, demonized, and, most recently, crowded out by the convenience of the commercial beer industry. Alive, probiotic, and embriagante, pulque is Mexico's ancestral drink.

¡Que siga viviendo el pulque y La Casa del Pulque!