Pulque (Octli)

I drank Pulque over the weekend and it was awesome. I've always wanted to try Pulque and learning that it was used in religious ceremonies by the Aztecs only added to the allure of it. Pulque is made by fermenting the juice of the agave plant, known as aguamiel. Though mezcal, tequila and pulque are all made from the agave plant, they are each made through different processes. Mezcal and tequila utilize the heart of the agave plant, while pulque only the aguamiel. Making pulque is a very organic, raw, simple process, with rarely any pasteurization involved. It's has a white, chalky color and the consistency of smoothie that's been sitting out for a while. Pulque isn't really distributed in mass quantities, though there are a few companies that sell it canned, as it's still mostly considered to be a "rural mexico" type of drink. Some people I was drinking w/ kept joking that you get drunk from pulque not only because you drink it, but because it keeps fermenting in your stomach. I don't know how much truth there is in that, but I could definitely see why people would think that. Pulque is a very, very raw drink, you're literally drinking agave nectar, and it tastes exactly what you would imagine an agave to taste like. Bland. I guess you could say it's an accuired taste. Halfway through drinking my first pulque I started feeling a bit light-headed, spacey. I'm not saying that I had any visions of Centzon-Totochtin and Ometochtli, the Aztec gods of drunkeness, but I did have a bit of trouble following my train of thought. Maybe it's because we had been drinking a bit before that, but I like to think that it was because of the pulque. Since learning of Pulque I've been interested in trying it, partly because of the rawness of it all, but mostly because my grandfathers, great-grandfathers and every descendant before them had consumed it. The PBR of the olde days. I'd like to know more about my ancestors, and being in Mexico definitely increases my opportunity to do just that. I've been reading a bit about the history of the town that my dad's from in an attempt to learn more about the indigenous people of the region, and have learned that archeologists are starting to speculate that El Cerro de Culiacan, an inactive volcano that sits at the foot of town and is known as Teoculhuacan Chicomoztoc to the Aztecs, was possibly the cradle of pre-hispanic Mexico. This means that the Toltecs, Mexicas, Aztecs and Purepechas would've all descended from there. I've known about my direct ties to the Purepechas of Michoacan, my maternal great-great-grandmother was Purepecha, but I've been mostly in the dark about my paternal indigenous roots. There's been speculations of the Guachichiles, Otomi or Chichimecas, all who lived around the region of La Canada de Caracheo, but I'm yet to find any concrete evidence or a direct link. Regardless, the search continues.