Pulque
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Pulque, occasionally known as octli or agave wine, is an alcoholic beverage made from the fermented sap of the maguey (agave) plant. It is traditional in central Mexico, where it has been produced for millennia. It has the color of milk, a rather viscous consistency and a sour yeast-like taste.
Close up of a maguey plant
Depiction of the goddess Mayahuel
Codex Mendoza, an early 16th-century manuscript, showing Aztec elders and pulque in a vessel (lower center)
Mezcal
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Mezcal, sometimes spelled mescal, is a distilled alcoholic beverage made from any type of agave. The word mezcal comes from Nahuatl mexcalli, which means "oven-cooked agave", from metl and ixcalli. Traditionally the word "mezcal" has been used generally in Mexico for all agave spirits and it continues to be used for many agave spirits whether these spirits have been legally certified as "mezcal" or not.
Bottles at a factory in Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca
A "Huichol still", a modified Filipino-type still with a suspended internal distillate collector. It was used by the Huichol people for making sotol (c. 1898).
A cantaro jar, made from barro negro pottery, used for serving mezcal
A typical maguey landscape