Unhinged, Hysterical, and Maniacally Hospitable
Pulque in D.F.
On a screamingly loud street not far from Mexico City’s fabled main plaza, next to a public bathroom and behind a couple sets of constantly swinging doors, I found myself clutching a smeared glass of something fruity, sour, and snot-like.
I have no idea who ordered or paid for this beverage, but I noticed a few things about it. First, that it was in a pint glass, and a menu on the wall—one of those striated plastic boards with moveable plastic letters—announced that jars and buckets were also optional conveyances. Then that the stuff inside the glass—pulque—had a vaguely buttermilk-like taste and the consistency of slime.
More pulque-filled glasses kept emerging magically out of the tottering, swaying crowd, and then, I also noticed, I was getting a little pulgue-high. All the better to enjoy Las Duelistas, the insane, friendly, sprawling bar—pulqueria, actually—where every college student in Latin America seemed to be getting drunk that day.
Pulque is made from fermented agave sap mixed with fruit or grains, usually oatmeal. The rim of the glass is lined with some sort of flavored salt, which is usually long gone by the time it arrives in your hands. Pulque is cheap and social and gives you a bizarre, loose-limbed buzz. The Aztecs concocted it first and were big fans, though after the Europeans entered the scene, cerveza became the country’s favored bargain tipple.
I saw a lot of young Mexico City residents (aka chilangos) celebrating the country’s pre-Colombian traditions, arms or necks bearing tattoos proclaiming non-European roots: brilliant, inky depictions of maize, the staple, pre-Spanish crop that Mexicans claim as birthright. Corn is in the blood.
Pulque, too. This is not a European import. It’s indigenous. Every inch of Las Duelistas blazes with multi-colored murals of Aztec cosmology, lest you forget the drink’s mythological origins. There’s a kind of biker bar defiance about it.
But the energy inside Las Duelistas is happy, if a little unhinged and hysterical. People wedge beside each other, sweaty and jostled, passing pulque around with a kind of maniacal hospitality. Try this. Now try this. Also, this.
Pulque-sharing will have the mystical effect of making your Spanish fluent, not that it will matter. All you really need here is a thirst for whatever gets passed your way. You don’t question the provenance. You just drink.