(Pictured above: Mexican Poison Ivy gives pulque, not venom.)
It took me 24 years en esta vida to savor the goodness that is pulque (pool-ke). Fate or destiny or lo que sea took far too long to fill my veins with that liquid magic.
I know I should have had it earlier. One of my mother’s last names — and, as I argue, by definition one of the five last names I use interchangeably to confusimpress my non Spanish speaking friends — is Maguey, the agave plant from where that life-giving and life-taking liquid is derived to nurture our mortal, sinful souls.
Además, para variar, mi madre, with her entrepreneurial ventures that were born out of necessity after losing her own madre as a teenager, the abuela I never met, was the (not so) proud jefa of not one but two gloriosas pulquerías in el Distrito Federal during the 1980s.
She was only 19, una jovencita, but the Jefa of “El Resbalón” (the slip, para mis amigos) and the other drinkery whose name has slipped into oblivion.
Mi madre bequeathed the pulquerías from an aunt who had passed away though these did not come without some jostling with other relatives for legal signatures on some fancy legal documents. Her tío Sergio wouldn’t sign over the drinkery, at least not until another tío who loved my mother and her two brothers mucho threatened him to not sign yet another legal document that would give tío Sergio something else. Think of it as a Mexican version of Raisin in the Sun and the blood is definitely not as thick as pulque.
“Era un ambiente triste,” Mamá Rocha said of the two establishments. Pulque’s history is as dense and complex as it is viscous and yo no soy ningún experto to tell that story, not yet. The drink, or at least at the pulquerías my mom owned, was then considered for people who couldn’t quite afford a Bacardí or a Don Julio. Pulque is somewhat thick, in a sweet threshold between horchata and a watered down smoothie. Flavorless in its “natural” form, pulque can also be mixed in an array of flavors from guayaba to piña to mango to coco to guava to papaya to fruits you haven’t even heard of. It’s easier to describe it as baba de oso (bear’s saliva or drool, I guess. Whatever sounds more appetizing).
Pulque sneaks up on you and can either knock you out or poke your inner tiger with a stick. In “El Resbalón” it was usually the latter. Pulquerías were notorious for turning into combat arenas from afternoon to late evening. The more baba de oso you imbibed, the more life and strength you acquired, up to a certain point, of course.
The pulquero, the one giving life to everyone, working or not, was no exception.
“Even the pulquero would get drunk - todo mundo tomaba y se emborrachaba. Era la ley del borracho más bravucón - not the law of the jungle but the law of the bravest, most dastardly drunkard,” mamá says.
I don’t remember what flavor pulque I had my first time. It was in Pachuca, Hidalgo on a trip with my tío Pedro and his wife, Eli. It tastes like a low calorie smoothie, I told my tío as the elixir slowly made its way through my veins. Pedro just rolled his eyes at my dumbassery. It might have been mango-flavored. I also had two because there was just no possible way something as smoothy-like could bundy me. I do however recall how that madre hit me, just as I was climbing the innards of the English clock tower in the middle of the plaza in Pachuca about 28 minutes later.
Pedro, Eli and I were climbing the rungs of the fixed ladder within the clock tower when the pulque-powered train hit my being.
Fuuuuuaaaa, I muttered to myself wide-eyed as the “delayed” effect coursed from my brain to the very tips of my fingers. This wasn’t your tío’s cuba libre booze high, it was much more serene and subtly powerful. As if your mind floated away while you remained firmly anchored on earth. In my case, to the rungs even as the person directly below me started getting irritated at my sudden desire to stop moving.
The two pulquerías were big business — but the human cost weighed on la jefa. The pulquerías were split into different drinking rooms for men and women. Mom never had many stories about las señoras but the men, they were a desmadre.
In Argentina, my literature professor Jorge Salessi, one of the most cultured individuals I’ve ever had the pleasure to learn from, recounted stories about his travels through Mexico. As we read through Juan Rulfo’s “El Llano en Llamas” , Salessi would go on tangents, one of which led to stories about alcohol and the violence it sparks in places where desperation and misery abound . Luckily for him and unfortunately for me, I was the only Mexican in the class which also meant I was now his Güikipedia for anything Mexican history.
I gravely disappointed him. My responses to his historical inquiries or events came out in the form of head scratches and quasi-pensive glances at the ceiling followed by awkward silences.
But he did once ask about pulque, of which the only thing I knew about then was the nearest cantina where to order it.
“I was always told to not go into these… types of bars,” Salessi would say as he paced the classroom. “They were rife with violence. It was here where men would unleash their devils, spilling blood and violence all over. And there was a drink that let them do that, I just… can’t remember what it was called.”
The man who had written books on criminology, hygiene and homosexuality in the national construction of Argentina lackadaisically pointed at me without even looking, asking if I knew what the name of that oh so cursed beverage was.
For once, I didn’t let him down as I shouted “pulque!” in the same way someone who has actually achieved something would shout “eureka!.”
“Well… at least you know that one,” Salessi replied, complemented with snickers from other students. “Pinche alcóholico,” my French classmate whispered in my ear.
“Señora, come quick, they’re tearing each other’s hairs out!” the pulquero, if he wasn’t blacked out drunk, that is, would tell my mother through the landline telephone. My mom was then only just in her 20s and studying business in college. Besides fielding homework and taking care of her two younger brothers, she also had to make enough time to tend to the drunks who wrecked the pulquería.
The cost of running such a place bothered her, especially the human toll.
While the hombres would drink, their small children would sit outside the pulquería, concentrated on whatever kept their attention from the shouts that went on inside the cantina. Despite how these businesses were paying for her and her brothers’ schooling and whatever the opportunity costs and point of equilibrium y no sé qué told her, there wasn’t an answer for how many broken noses, heads, men and families were the optimal amount for pulque money.
“Nos dolía mucho ver eso. Así que las cerramos y remodelamos. It hurt us too much to see all of that. So we closed them up and renovated them.” In a matter of months, the places of pulque became more reputable places like dry cleaners and bakeries.
I don’t think Tío Sergio was too happy about any of that.
It’s difficult to find pulque outside of Mexico. Of the many things I bring back from my travels - mazapanes, tamarindo, vino mexicano, barbacoa, tortillas, queso manchego, panela y oaxaca, café, conchas and more - pulque hasn’t yet made the list. Quizás algún día.