Pulque is a milky, slightly viscous, lightly sour alcoholic drink made by fermenting aguamiel – the fresh sap of maguey (agave) plants – in central Mexico. It has between 4 and 7% alcohol, about the strength of beer, and a history going back to pre-Hispanic times (Escalante et al., 2016). It’s still sold fresh in pulquerías in Mexico City and rural areas, often blended with fruit as curados.
How Pulque Is Made
- Tapping the maguey. When a mature agave is about to flower, the central bud is cut out and the cavity is scraped so sap collects in it. A tlachiquero collects this aguamiel – sweet, clear and mild – once or twice a day for months.
- Seeding. The fresh aguamiel is added to a vat of actively fermenting pulque (the semilla or “seed”), traditionally in a fermenting room called a tinacal.
- Fermenting. Within hours to a day or so, bacteria and yeasts turn the sugars into alcohol, acids and the slime (exopolysaccharides) that gives pulque its body.
- Drinking fresh. Pulque keeps fermenting after it’s made and turns sour quickly, which is why it’s traditionally drunk fresh and why canned pulque is heat-treated.
How the sap is handled changes the result: in one Michoacán community that boils the sap before inoculating it, pulque was sweeter, less acidic and had fewer kinds of bacteria and yeast than in a nearby community that doesn’t boil it (Álvarez-Ríos et al., 2020).
The Microbes Behind Pulque
Pulque is fermented by a mixed community. Studies led at Mexico’s national university (UNAM) found lactic acid bacteria such as Leuconostoc mesenteroides and Lactobacillus species, the ethanol-producing bacterium Zymomonas mobilis, and yeasts including Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Escalante et al., 2008; 2016 review). Leuconostoc makes much of the characteristic viscosity.
Some bacteria isolated from pulque have shown probiotic properties in lab and animal tests – for example a Leuconostoc mesenteroides strain (Giles-Gómez et al., 2016) – but that’s research on isolated strains, not proof that drinking pulque has health benefits. Pulque is an alcoholic drink.
An Ancient Drink
Pulque is thought to have been an important food as well as a ritual drink in ancient Mesoamerica. Researchers analyzing more than 300 pottery fragments from Teotihuacan (150 BC–AD 650) found chemical traces of Zymomonas mobilis – pulque’s signature bacterium – in 14 of them, supporting the idea that pulque was produced and drunk there and may have helped supplement the diet (Correa-Ascencio et al., 2014).
Can You Make Pulque at Home?
Only if you can get fresh aguamiel and an active pulque “seed”. Aguamiel must be collected from a living, mature maguey and it spoils quickly, so true pulque is essentially impossible to make outside maguey-growing regions. Drinks made from agave syrup and a starter such as kefir grains may be pleasant, but they aren’t pulque. Outside Mexico, look for canned pulque in Mexican grocery stores – it’s heat-treated, so it has no live cultures – and blend it into a curado (recipe card below).
How Pulque Is Drunk
- Natural (blanco): plain, fresh pulque.
- Curados: blended with fruit, nuts or oats – guava, strawberry, pineapple, pine nut and celery are classic – often sweetened.
- In pulquerías, traditional bars serving fresh pulque by the glass or jug.
Pulque contains alcohol, so it isn’t suitable for children, during pregnancy or for anyone avoiding alcohol.
Other Mexican ferments: tepache, tejuino and the Rarámuri corn beer tesgüino. The Maya brewed balché from honey and bark.