Agave

The wider agave world, which is not tequila and is not governed by the same law. Mezcal, whose denomination of origin explicitly excludes the tequila states, along with pulque, the pulquerías, aguamiel and Mayahuel. Earthen pit ovens rather than masonry hornos, and a plant that has been fermented in Mexico for far longer than anything has been distilled.

Part of Mexico

171 moments in this segment.

1884 - A pulque shop around 1900. A photochrom print of a pulquería at Tacubaya. About 1884 to 1900. Pulque was the working drink of the central plateau and the shops were painted with names and pictures on the outside.
1903 - Agave mirabilis at Las Vigas, 1903. A flowering plant photographed with a man standing beside it for scale, possibly on 26 August 1903. Las Vigas, Veracruz. The flowering stalk of a large agave can reach eight metres in a few weeks.
2009 - The discovery of pulque. The Toltec ruler Tecpancaltzin on his throne being offered pulque, with Papantzin and his daughter before him. Painted by José María Obregón. In the story Xóchitl brings the new drink to the court and becomes the king's mistress.
2009 - Agave flexispina at UNAM. The species in the ornamental section of the university botanical garden. Mexico City, 2009. The UNAM garden holds one of the country's main living agave collections.
2009 - A mezcal seller at Mitla. A vendor in the town. San Pablo Villa de Mitla, Oaxaca, 2009. Mitla sits on the road east out of Oaxaca that is lined with palenques.
2010 - Agave in the Sierra Madre Oriental. Forest habitat near Ciudad Victoria with agave, Juniperus flaccida and Dioon edule. Tamaulipas, 2010. Agaves grow wild across the whole dry Mexican interior, not only in cultivation.
2010 - Agave in the city. A maguey growing in an urban setting. Coacalco, State of Mexico, 2010. The plant survives on almost no water, which is why it is planted along roads.
2010 - A plant at Hierve el Agua. An unidentified plant at the petrified waterfall. Hierve el Agua, Oaxaca, 2010. The site's mineral springs sit above terraces the Zapotecs irrigated over two thousand years ago.
2010 - A plant at Tlayacapan. An unidentified plant in the town. Tlayacapan, Morelos, 2010. Tlayacapan keeps a sixteenth-century Augustinian monastery listed by UNESCO.
2010 - A large maguey at the Olmedo museum. A big agave in the museum grounds. Mexico City, 2010. The Dolores Olmedo museum occupies a sixteenth-century hacienda in Xochimilco.
2010 - Peacock and maguey. A bird beside an agave in the museum gardens. Museo Dolores Olmedo, Mexico City, 2010. Olmedo kept peacocks and xoloitzcuintle dogs on the grounds.
2010 - Tepoztécatl, god of pulque. One face of a carved stone showing the pulque god. Palacio de Cortés, Cuernavaca, Morelos, 2010. The Mexica counted four hundred pulque gods, the Centzon Totochtin, the four hundred rabbits.
2010 - The bar at Mezcal Pensamiento. The counter of the shop in the market town. Tlacolula, Oaxaca, 2010. Buying mezcal by tasting straight from the jar is the normal way of doing it here.
2010 - A mezcal cask. A wooden barrel at Mezcal Pensamiento. Tlacolula, Oaxaca, 2010. Most artisanal mezcal is sold unaged, so the cask is the exception rather than the rule.
2010 - The Mezcal Pensamiento front. The shopfront in Tlacolula. Oaxaca, 2010. Tlacolula's Sunday market draws buyers from the whole valley.
2010 - Mezcals for sale. A range of bottles at Mezcal Pensamiento. Tlacolula, Oaxaca, 2010. Wild agave mezcals, tobalá and tepeztate among them, are made in tiny quantities from plants that take decades.
2011 - A plant at Casa Frissac. An unidentified plant at the house in Tlalpan. Mexico City, 2011. Casa Frissac is a nineteenth-century house now used as a cultural centre.
2011 - Vessels for pulque. A cántaro by Hermania Consuelo Vite of Olotla, Metztitlán, with a pulque container by Lucía Lugo Chávez of Tepetitlan. Hidalgo pieces photographed 2011. Pulque is carried in clay and in leather, never sealed, because it goes on fermenting.
2011 - La Lunita in Cholula. A bar advertising pulque. Cholula, Puebla, 2011. Puebla and Tlaxcala are the other heartland of the drink alongside Hidalgo and the State of Mexico.
2012-03-02 - Guachimontones - La Otra Ruta. The tequila regulator films Guachimontones as the other route. The circular stepped architecture there is unique to western Mexico.
2012 - Guachimontones. The circular stepped structures at the Jalisco site. 2012. The Teuchitlán tradition built round pyramids, a form found nowhere else in Mesoamerica, in the middle of what is now agave country.
2012 - Maguey at Piedras Encimadas. An agave near the Valle de las Piedras Encimadas park. Puebla, 2012. The valley is full of stacked rock formations weathered out of volcanic tuff.
2012 - Botica mezcal at an opening. The brand served at the opening of the Nuevo Realismo Latinoamericano exhibition at FARO. Iztapalapa, Mexico City, 2012. FARO is a public arts factory built in a former transport depot.
2012-08-09 - EL PROCESO DEL IXTLE. The process of making ixtle. Extraction is done by hand with a blade against a board.
2012-09-07 - Bebidas de México - Mezcal (07/09/2012). Canal Once devotes an episode of Bebidas de México to mezcal. Mezcal has its own denomination of origin under NOM-070, recognised in 1994, and it explicitly excludes Jalisco, Guanajuato, Michoacán and Tamaulipas.
2012-09-14 - Bebidas de México - Pulque (14/09/2012). Canal Once devotes an episode of Bebidas de México to pulque. Pulque is fermented aguamiel, the sap of the maguey, at between 2 and 7 percent alcohol, and it predates distillation in Mexico entirely.
2013-01-07 - Pulquería La victoria. A portrait of the pulquería La Victoria. The rooms were traditionally decorated with elaborate hand-painted names.
2013-01-10 - Los recuerdos del porvenir. Las pulquerías de la ciudad de México. A film on the pulquerías of the city and their memories. Most closed between the 1950s and the 1990s.
2013 - The García distillery. An agave distillery beside the highway at Jantetelco. Morelos, 2013. Mezcal is made in nine states under its denomination of origin, Oaxaca among them.
2013 - Magueyes under cover. A greenhouse of agaves grown for mezcal beside the road at Jantetelco. Morelos, 2013. Espadín is the species behind most commercial mezcal because it matures fastest.
2013 - An agave mill at Macuilxóchitl. A grinding mill beside route 196. Macuilxóchitl de Artigas Carranza, Oaxaca, 2013. The tahona is a stone wheel dragged in a circle by a horse or a mule to crush the cooked agave.
2013 - Rain on the leaves. Rain caught on the magueyes at Amoltotepec. Puebla, 2013. The leaf channels water down to the plant's centre, which is how it survives on so little.
2013-08-21 - Reportaje: El pulque en Apan Hidalgo. A university report on pulque in Apan, Hidalgo. An 1866 railway from Veracruz to Mexico City became known as the pulque train.
2014-02-17 - Reportaje: Producción de mezcal en Guerrero 2da parte. A report on mezcal production in Guerrero. Guerrero was in the original denomination but produces far less than Oaxaca.
2014 - Lechuguilla. Agave lechuguilla, from which textile fibre is drawn. Photographed 2014. Lechuguilla fibre, ixtle, is what rope, brushes and the charro's reata are made from.
2014 - The tlachiquero, in clay. A figure of a sap-scraper at work by Zenón Martínez García of Tlaquepaque, Jalisco. Museo de Arte Popular, Mexico City, 2014. The trade is disappearing, which is partly why it is being modelled.
2014 - Still and serpentine. An alembic and a condenser with its coil at an organic mezcal works. Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca, 2014. The still is copper or clay, and clay stills give a different result that some makers insist on.
2015-05-22 - La Ciudad de México en el Tiempo: Pulquerías. Canal Once places pulquerías in the history of Mexico City. At their peak roughly 300 haciendas produced pulque, mainly in Hidalgo and Tlaxcala.
2015 - The Mezcaloteca. A place to taste and buy mezcal in the city. Oaxaca, 2015. Mezcal has its own denomination of origin, which explicitly excludes Jalisco, Guanajuato, Michoacán and Tamaulipas, the tequila states.
2015 - Mezcal and a tamal. A drink and a tamal at a small restaurant outside the Tecnológico de Monterrey campus. Mexico City, 2015. Mezcal and tequila run under two separate standards, NOM-070 and NOM-006, with two regulatory councils.
2015 - A large maguey. A big agave plant inside the ecological park of the capital. Mexico City, 2015. Maguey is the general Mexican word for the plant, from a Caribbean language rather than from Nahuatl.
2015 - Long dark leaves. An agave with large dark green leaves among other planting in the ecological park. Mexico City, 2015. An agave flowers once and then dies, which is why cutting the stalk keeps it alive and giving sap.
2015 - A small maguey. A young plant with pale green leaves and yellow marks at the tips, on a path in the ecological park. Mexico City, 2015. Agaves are propagated from offshoots at the base, which are clones of the parent.
2015 - The heart of the agave. A close view into the centre of a thornless Mexican agave, in the greenhouse of an environmental education centre. Mexico City, 2015. An agave is not a cactus; it belongs to the asparagus family.
2015 - Agave salmiana var. ferox. A maguey of the ferox variety, family Agavaceae. Photographed 2015. Agave salmiana is the species most used for pulque on the central plateau.
2015 - The main pyramid at Guachimontones. The largest of the circular structures at the site. Teuchitlán, Jalisco, 2015. The site was excavated from the 1970s by Phil Weigand, who had to argue for years that the circles were architecture at all.
2015 - The circular pyramid. Another view of the main structure at Guachimontones. Jalisco, 2015. A pole for a volador rite is thought to have stood at the centre of each circle.
2015 - Henequen at Telchac Puerto. Henequen plants growing in the municipality. Yucatán, 2015. Henequen fibre made Yucatán rich between the 1880s and the 1910s, worked on estates that held Maya labourers in debt bondage.
2015 - Los Tequileros de Chapala. A group at the 2015 Feria de los Maestros del Arte. Chapala, Jalisco, 2015. The fair brings folk artists from across the country to the lakeside town each November.
2015 - Agave tequilana at Acuexcomatl. A blue agave at the environmental education centre. Xochimilco, Mexico City, 2015. The plant needs roughly seven to fourteen years before its core is worth cutting.
2015 - Metamorfosis at the Pulquería Tecolote. Clara Romero Murcia beside the mural she worked on with Daniel Vera Sierra. Santa Marta Acatitla, Mexico City, 2015. Painting the pulquería front and walls is part of the trade's own tradition.
2015 - Inside the Tecolote. The bar of the pulquería. Santa Marta Acatitla, Mexico City, 2015. Pulque is served from wooden barrels by the litre, not by the glass.
2015 - Inside the tequila and mezcal museum. A gallery of the Museo del Tequila y el Mezcal. Mexico City, 2015. The claim that all tequila is mezcal is true historically and false legally: the two denominations were drawn to keep them apart.
2015 - An endemic maguey. A plant of the Agavaceae family in the middle of the ecological park. Tlalpan, Mexico City, 2015. The park protects one of the last stretches of pine and oak forest inside the city limits.
2015 - Maguey in the ecological park. Another agave in the park at Tlalpan. Mexico City, 2015. Agave leaves were used for paper, roofing, needles, rope and fodder before anything was drunk from the plant.
2015-07-24 - Neopulquerías: Pulque y algo más | Reporte Indigo. A report on neopulquerías. A revival from the 2000s brought the drink to a younger urban clientele.
2015-08-07 - Pulquerías tradicionales: La historia del dueño de “La Hija de los Apaches“ | Reporte Indigo. A report on traditional pulquerías and the history of one owner. Family ownership across generations is common in the surviving houses.
2015-09-13 - Extracción del Aguamiel y fermentación del Pulque-Huitzilac, Mor.. Extraction of aguamiel and fermentation of pulque at Huitzilac. Pulque must be drunk within days of fermenting.
2015-09-28 - El pulque y su condena en una sociedad mediática. Documental. A documentary on pulque and its condemnation in a media society. The Cárdenas government of the 1930s campaigned against alcohol generally.
2015-10-31 - EL PULQUE DOCUMENTAL. A documentary treatment of pulque. Revolution disruption, government campaigns and brewery competition together broke the trade.
2016-01-12 - Pulquería La titina. A portrait of the pulquería La Titina. Painted signs and murals were a standard feature of the trade.
2016-02-15 - San Juan Bautista Jayacatlan Etla Elaboración del Mezcal Tradicional 2016 Oaxaca. Traditional mezcal made at San Juan Bautista Jayacatlán in Oaxaca. The earthen pit and its wood fire give mezcal the smoke that tequila lacks.
2016-03-04 - ¡Hey má, fuiste pulquera!. A documentary asking a mother about her time as a pulquera. Oral history is the main record of the trade's twentieth century decline.
2016-04-19 - Así se extrae el aguamiel del agave. A short film on extracting aguamiel from the agave. Collection happens twice daily and cannot be mechanised.
2016-04-21 - Documental Pulque. A documentary on pulque. The drink now accounts for about ten percent of Mexican alcohol consumption, a figure that carries no year in its source.
2016 - A henequen cord bag. A bag of henequen fibre shown in the exhibition Henequén a través del tiempo. Museo Nacional de Culturas Populares, Mexico City, 2016. Synthetic twine ended the henequen trade in the 1960s and 1970s.
2016 - A talk at La Xochitl. A gathering at the pulquería for a discussion on pulque and cartonería tied to the fourth paper craft fair. Santa María la Ribera, Mexico City, 2016. The neighbourhood keeps several of the city's surviving pulquerías.
2017-05-01 - Pulque: propiedades curativas y sagradas #Teotihuacán. A piece on pulque's curative and sacred properties near Teotihuacan. Sacred status was lost after the conquest and the drink became ordinary.
2017 - Traditional pulques. Glasses of pulque served at Los Quetzales. Copilco, Mexico City, 2017. Pulque is fermented agave sap, not distilled, and it was drunk in central Mexico long before the Spanish brought the still.
2017 - A mezcal stand. A booth at the Expo de los Pueblos Indígenas. Mexico City, May 2017. Much artisanal mezcal is made by indigenous producers who sell it under their own community names.
2017-11-23 - Don Maximino. Tejedor de Maguey. The Museo Nacional de Antropología films Don Maximino, a maguey weaver. Ixtle fibre was spun and woven long before the plant was fermented or distilled.
2017-11-24 - Corto Documental: Mezcal Orgullo Poblano. A short documentary on mezcal as a Puebla pride. Regional identity attaches strongly to each producing state.
2018-04-06 - D Todo - El ixtle, Querétaro (05/04/2018). Canal Once's D Todo covers ixtle in Querétaro. Ixtle is the fibre drawn from maguey leaves and was used for cloth and rope long before the plant was fermented.
2018-04-12 - Pulquería 'Nomás no llores'. A visit to a pulquería named Nomás no llores. Pulquería names are part of the trade's folk humour.
2018 - The arriero pours. In the traditional dance of the arrieros the muleteers ride through the town shouting, and some of them pour drinks. Texcalyacac, State of Mexico, 2018. The arriero drove mule trains, which is how goods crossed Mexico before the railways.
2018 - The mezcal inspection car. A vehicle used to regulate mezcal production in the state, parked in Barrio Analco. Victoria de Durango, 2018. Durango was added to the mezcal denomination of origin in 1994.
2018-06-30 - El Pulque – La bebida aun más Mexicana que el Tequila. An argument that pulque is more Mexican than tequila. The maguey was cultivated for drink and fibre for millennia before distillation arrived.
2018-10-29 - Elaboración de artesanías con fibra de maguey. Conoce el proceso del Ixtle. The making of crafts from maguey fibre. Ixtle work supports households in the arid centre and north.
2018-11-08 - DOCUMENTAL "EL MURCIÉLAGO Y EL AGAVE". The public broadcasting system presents a documentary on the bat and the agave. The greater long-nosed bat pollinates agave, and because the plant is cut before flowering, commercial cultivation removes its food source.
2018-11-28 - El mezcal ancestral de Villa Sola de Vega, Oaxaca, México. Ancestral mezcal at Villa Sola de Vega in Oaxaca. The village is known for its pechuga and wild agave distillates.
2018-12-14 - Murciélagos, agave y mezcal. TV UNAM covers bats, agave and mezcal. Bat-friendly production leaves a proportion of plants to flower.
2019-01-14 - Mezcal Ancestral Pechuga Tobalá #Barro (#138) OAXACA. A tasting of an ancestral pechuga tobalá mezcal distilled in clay. Pechuga adds fruit and a raw chicken or turkey breast to the third distillation.
2019-01-25 - Itinerario - Tata Mezcalería. Canal Once's Itinerario visits a mezcalería. Urban mezcal bars brought the rural spirit to a metropolitan market in the 2010s.
2019 - A tlachiquero at work. The man who scrapes the maguey, photographed after working the plant. Tizayuca, Hidalgo, 2019. He cuts out the heart, scrapes the cavity daily and draws the sap with a long gourd called an acocote.
2019 - Blue agave in the capital. Agave tequilana growing in Mexico City. 2019. Agave tequilana Weber azul is the only variety the tequila standard permits.
2019 - Ball Court 1 at Loma Alta. The court at the Guachimontones site. Jalisco, 2019. Ball courts run out from between the circular platforms like spokes.
2019 - Obregón's pulque painting in the collection. The Discovery of Pulque by José María Obregón, in the constitutive holdings of the Museo Nacional de Arte since 1982. Mexico City. Obregón painted it in 1869 as a national history subject in a European academic manner.
2019-07-10 - Pequeña Historia del pulque, Hidalgo, México.. A short history of pulque in Hidalgo. Production exploded after independence and the drink was popular across classes into the late nineteenth century.
2019-07-15 - Charanda de Uruapan, bebida de caña, artesanal y ancestral de delicioso sabor. A report on charanda from Uruapan in Michoacán. Charanda is a cane spirit with its own denomination, not an agave one.
2019-08-25 - La ciudad en extinción | Pulquería. Canal Catorce films a pulquería in its series on the vanishing city. Public broadcasting has documented the closures as they happened.
2019-08-27 - 4 nuevas especies de agaves RECORRIDO. TV UNAM reports four new agave species identified. Mexico holds the great majority of the world's agave diversity.
2019-11-11 - Kiss Of Mezcal: Mezcal de Puebla The Ancestral Process of Perla De Tepenene. The ancestral process of mezcal from Puebla. Puebla is inside the original mezcal denomination.
2020-01-10 - El documental que hizo Hitler sobre el pulque (Pulquebereitung in Mexiko). An account of the same German pulque film. Foreign propaganda filming preserved practices Mexican cinema ignored at the time.
2020-03-14 - El documental que Hitler ordenó hacer sobre el pulque en México | VERNE México. A report on the documentary the Nazi government commissioned about pulque in Mexico. German ethnographic filming in Mexico in the 1930s produced an unexpected record of the trade.
2020-03-18 - Gracias a Dios Mezcal Tobalá Cultivado (2012 - 2020). A producer documents cultivated tobalá from 2012 to 2020. Cultivating a wild species takes the better part of a decade to prove.
2020-04-24 - MEZCAL CREYENTE, Mezcal Artesanal, Agave Tobala. An artisanal mezcal made from agave tobalá. Wild agaves are gathered rather than farmed, which limits volume.
2020-04-27 - Pulquería La gran leona. A portrait of the pulquería La Gran Leona. Each house cured its pulque with fruit or nuts to its own recipe.
2020 - The Chapultepec botanical garden. The garden in the forest, seen from outside and within. Mexico City, 2020. Mexico holds around 200 agave species, more than any other country.
2020-07-22 - Cómo se hace el MEZCAL? Amatengo, Oaxaca. EXPEDICIÓN RANACHILANGA. How mezcal is made at Amatengo in Oaxaca. Each palenque works to its own timings rather than to a standard.
2020-11-02 - Visité Donde se Crea Mezcal Ancestral en Santa Catarina Minas, Ocotlán, #Oaxaca. A visit to a place making ancestral mezcal at Santa Catarina Minas. Minas is the best known village for clay pot distillation.
2020-11-15 - Historia de una Pulquera - documental. A documentary on the history of a woman pulque seller. Women ran many pulquerías despite the trade's masculine reputation.
2020-12-12 - Mexico's forgotten drink: The story of Pulque. An account of pulque as Mexico's forgotten drink. It is fermented rather than distilled and so is older than both tequila and mezcal.
2020-12-14 - Etapas del Proceso de elaboración del Mezcal Pecado Sagrado. The stages of one producer's mezcal process. Small palenques produce a few hundred litres at a time.
2020-12-21 - Así se elabora el Mezcal Ancestral 3000 Noches, en Villa Sola de Vega, Oaxaca.. How ancestral mezcal is made at a Oaxacan village. Yields from clay distillation are a fraction of copper output.
2020-12-23 - Mezcal Ancestral de altura: «Maseua», Chilapa, Guerrero. Agave Cupreata. A high altitude ancestral mezcal from Chilapa in Guerrero. Altitude changes the sugar content of the plant.
2021-01-09 - ¿CÓMO se ELABORA el Pulque?| Bebida SAGRADA de los Aztecas. An account of how pulque is made. The Jesuits ran large-scale production from the late seventeenth century to fund their colleges.
2021-01-19 - proceso del Mezcal...en Michoacán México. The mezcal process filmed in Michoacán. The state's exclusion from the denomination is a legal boundary rather than a technical one.
2021-02-01 - Probando «Mezcal Envido 29». Mezcal Ancestral, destilado en barro. Ocotlán, Oaxaca.. A tasting of an ancestral mezcal. Tobalá is a wild agave that cannot easily be cultivated.
2021-03-27 - Factor Ciencia - El agave de Tlaxcala (27/03/2021). Canal Once's Factor Ciencia examines the agave of Tlaxcala. Tlaxcala and Hidalgo formed the historic core of pulque production.
2021-05-27 - D Todo - Para todo mal, mezcal (27/05/2021). Canal Once's D Todo covers mezcal under the proverb para todo mal, mezcal. The mezcal norm became law in 2003 with certification beginning in 2005.
2021-06-01 - D Todo - Zonas arqueológicas de México (01/06/2021). Canal Once's D Todo covers Mexican archaeological zones including Teuchitlán. The Teuchitlán tradition sites of AD 200 to 900 lie inside the tequila World Heritage boundary.
2021-06-03 - Científicos del IPN descubren propiedades en el pulque, podría ayudar a combatir el cáncer. A report on IPN scientists finding properties in pulque. Its probiotic content has drawn recent research interest.
2021-06-15 - Jardín de Mayahuel y Festival Cultural del Maguey Pulquero en Singuilucan Hdgo.. A visit to the Jardín de Mayahuel and a maguey festival. Regional festivals now promote the plant as heritage rather than as agriculture.
2021 - Hacienda Real San Miguel Ometusco. An aerial view of the eighteenth-century estate, ten hectares of buildings that led the region's distilling in the Porfirian years. Axapusco, State of Mexico, 2021. The great pulque haciendas of the central plateau collapsed as a business after the Revolution.
2021 - Proceso de elaboración de mezcal (molienda y arrancar tinas para fermentar) parte 2.. The milling stage of mezcal production and the start of fermentation. Fermentation happens in open wooden vats with wild yeasts.
2021-09-15 - Pobre Mezcal | Documental. A documentary titled Pobre Mezcal. The boom in demand has pressured wild agave populations severely.
2021-09-15 - Pulquería La antigua Roma. A visit to the pulquería La Antigua Roma. Curados, pulque flavoured with fruit, brought younger drinkers back.
2021-11-17 - Destilación Ancestral. A second ancestral distillation film from the same producer. The category is defined by equipment rather than by flavour.
2021-12-22 - Documental Mezcal Sacapalabras //RODANDO a Santa Catarina Minas Oaxaca. A documentary journey to Santa Catarina Minas. Growth in the export market transformed village economies within a decade.
2022-01-07 - Te presentamos el origen del mezcal , bebida artesanal producida en el estado de Oaxaca.. A regional news item on the origin of mezcal. The word mezcal remains the correct generic term for any distilled agave spirit.
2022-01-27 - Destilación de Mezcal Ancestral Piedra del Santo. Ancestral mezcal distillation filmed at a palenque. Ancestral, artisanal and industrial are the three legal production categories.
2022-02-08 - El Pulque, extracción y fermentación.. The extraction and fermentation of pulque. The drink is milky and viscous and does not keep, which is why it never industrialised.
2022-02-23 - Así es el oficio de un tlachiquero. Excélsior films the trade of the tlachiquero. The tlachiquero draws the aguamiel from the hollowed heart of the plant, traditionally with a long gourd.
2022-02-25 - El Pulque (parte 3 de 3) - Extracción de Aguamiel y Fermentación - Historia Nueva. The third part of a series on pulque covering extraction and fermentation. Around six maguey varieties are used for the drink.
2022-03-27 - Proceso de raspa de maguey y aguamiel Tula Hidalgo 😃😂. The scraping of maguey and collection of aguamiel at Tula in Hidalgo. A single plant can yield sap for several months before it dies.
2022-04-24 - Mezcal Artesanal en Oaxaca: La Bebida de los Dioses | Palenque Jarquín. Artisanal mezcal in Oaxaca presented as the drink of the gods. Espadín is the most widely cultivated mezcal agave.
2022 - The heart of the pulque maguey. When the maguey matures the heart weeps aguamiel, which ferments into pulque. Photographed 2022. A single plant can give several litres of sap a day for months.
2022-07-08 - Propaga UNAM agave pulquero y orquídeas. UNAM Global TV reports the university propagating pulque agave and orchids. Institutional propagation counters the genetic narrowing of commercial monoculture.
2022-07-14 - The 20-Year Wait: The Secret Soul of Mezcal in Oaxaca (2012 Documentary). An account of the twenty year wait behind Oaxacan mezcal. Slow-maturing wild agaves cannot respond to demand spikes.
2022-07-15 - Destilacion Ancestral. Ancestral distillation filmed by a mezcal house. Clay stills produce small volumes and break often.
2022-07-21 - Mucho Rico, mezcal artesanal papalote, agave Cupreata, endémico de Guerrero, México.. An artisanal mezcal made from papalote agave in Guerrero. Agave cupreata is the Guerrero and Michoacán species.
2022-07-21 - Mucho Rico, mezcal tradicional cupreata y espadín, Guerrero y Oaxaca. A traditional mezcal from cupreata and espadín in Guerrero. Blending species is common in the region.
2022-08-08 - Conoce el Mezcal artesanal Hacienda San Agustín.. A visit to an artisanal mezcal hacienda. Larger operations sit between the palenque and the industrial plant.
2022-11-09 - El documental 🎥 del Pulque que hizo Hitler 😮😮😮. A short piece on the German pulque documentary. The film shows the haciendas still working at scale.
2022-11-17 - Documental nazi sobre el proceso del Pulque en México. The German-made film on the pulque process in Mexico. The footage survives as one of the earliest moving records of the tinacal.
2023-01-24 - Hacienda Xochuca en 4K | Tlaxco Tlaxcala | Cómo se hace el Pulque y el Aguamiel |. A visit to the Hacienda Xochuca at Tlaxco in Tlaxcala. The pulque haciendas were among the wealthiest agricultural estates in the country.
2023-03-14 - Producción de Mezcal Artesanal, realizado en Opongio, Michoacán. A certification body films artisanal mezcal production at Opongio in Michoacán. Michoacán is excluded from mezcal's denomination and its agave spirits carry other names.
2023-03-16 - KARLA MELJEM Sommelier catando MEZCAL PROMESA ARTESANAL TOBALA. A sommelier tastes an artisanal mezcal. Formal tasting vocabulary arrived with the category's commercial rise.
2023-03-24 - ❇️ ¿Cómo se hace el ixtle? 🤔 #artesanías #ixtle #maguey #villaprogreso #artesanos #méxico. A short explanation of how ixtle is made. The fibre is used for rope, bags and scouring pads.
2023-04-05 - Aguamiel Descubre sus secretos y cómo se transforma en pulque! ✨️🥃. An explanation of aguamiel and how it becomes pulque. Fermentation is spontaneous and takes place in the tinacal.
2023-04-06 - Historia de las cantinas, tabernas y pulquerías de la Ciudad de México. Radio INAH presents a history of the cantinas, taverns and pulquerías of Mexico City. Pulquerías were regulated from 1672, long before any other drinking house in the city.
2023-05-16 - Proceso de destilación de Mezcal. A film of the mezcal distillation process. Distillation is usually done twice, as in tequila.
2023 - Tlacolula market. The Sunday market in the Oaxaca valley town, formally the Mercado Municipal Martes. Tlacolula, Oaxaca, 2023. Tlacolula sits in the middle of the Oaxaca mezcal country.
2023 - Curados at the Tlaxcala fair. Glasses of pulque flavoured with red fruit, walnut and pistachio, sold under the Pulmex name. Feria de Tlaxcala, 2023. A curado is pulque blended with fruit or nuts, which is how most people drink it now.
2023-06-24 - El SECRETO detrás del MEZCAL: El Proceso que pocos conocen en OAXACA. An account of the mezcal process. Milling is often done with a stone tahona drawn by a horse or mule.
2023 - El hilo natural más VALIOSO de MEXICO Documental del Ixtle. A documentary on ixtle, described as Mexico's most valuable natural thread. The fibre is drawn by scraping the leaf down to its strands.
2023-07-17 - GUACHIMONTONES, Teuchitlán GUIA COMPLETA ¡Sorprendente!. A guide to Guachimontones at Teuchitlán. The site's concentric platforms were built by a culture that also cultivated agave.
2023-09-15 - Échale piquete - Historia del pulque: la bebida de los dioses (15/09/2023). Canal Once's Échale piquete covers the history of pulque as the drink of the gods. The maguey takes about twelve years to mature before it yields any sap at all.
2023-09-30 - Mayahuel - Morfología del Pulque (Serie). A university broadcaster presents Mayahuel in a series on the morphology of pulque. Among Mexica commoners the drink was permitted only to the elderly and to pregnant women.
2023-11-28 - UNBOXING 🤩 ¿Qué vas a ENCONTRAR en tu KIT MEZCALERO ANCESTRAL? 🐆✨. An unboxing of an ancestral mezcal kit. Marketing of the ancestral category has grown faster than production of it.
2024-01-14 - OAXACA Y SU MEZCAL ARTESANAL | Documental. A documentary on artisanal mezcal in Oaxaca. Mezcal's original denomination covered Oaxaca, Guerrero, Durango, San Luis Potosí, Puebla and Zacatecas.
2024-01-19 - 🐆 DESTILACIÓN en OLLA DE BARRO | ¿Qué es un MEZCAL ANCESTRAL?. Distillation in a clay pot, the mark of ancestral mezcal. The ancestral category requires clay stills rather than copper.
2024-03-09 - así sacan el AGUA MIEL del maguey. A film of aguamiel being drawn from the maguey. The sap is sweet and non-alcoholic until fermentation begins.
2024-03-14 - ¿Sabes cómo se hace el mezcal?. A short explanation of how mezcal is made. Mezcal and tequila are two separate denominations with two separate standards.
2024-04-26 - El arte del raspado de maguey para la producción de aguamiel y la elaboración del tradicional pulque. A report on the art of scraping maguey to produce aguamiel. The cavity must be scraped daily for months to keep the sap flowing.
2025-01-11 - EL PULQUE: Un Legado Mexicano que Nunca Muere | Documental. A documentary calling pulque a Mexican legacy that never dies. Its decline was commercial displacement rather than a change in taste.
2025-02-07 - Conoce "Las Duelistas" una pulquería con tradición revolucionaria. El Universal visits Las Duelistas, a pulquería with revolutionary tradition. The surviving pulquerías of Mexico City are now heritage sites as much as bars.
2025-03-23 - Proceso de la elaboración del mezcal – Parte 1: La jima del maguey Tobalá. The first part of the mezcal process covering the jima. Wild agaves may take fifteen years or more to mature.
2025-04-23 - "Mayáhuel y el origen del pulque: la diosa que se convirtió en planta". An account of Mayahuel and the origin of pulque. Mayahuel is the goddess of the maguey, and the Centzon Totochtin, the four hundred rabbits, personified drunkenness.
2025 - Los Duelistas. One of the oldest pulquerías in the capital. Mexico City, 2025. The bars traditionally allowed no chairs, no women and no bottles to leave, rules that have all since gone.
2025 - La Sin Rival. One of the oldest pulquerías in the city. Guadalajara, Jalisco, 2025. Pulquerías were driven close to extinction by the beer industry from the 1920s and have come back since the 2000s.
2025-07-02 - Salvemos El Maguey Documental. A documentary calling for the maguey to be saved. Pulque agave has no protected denomination and no regulatory council.
2025-07-10 - La ruta del sabor - Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca. Canal Once visits Teotitlán del Valle in Oaxaca. The Oaxacan valleys are the centre of mezcal production under the original denomination.
2025-09-22 - Proceso de elaboración del MEZCAL por Sergio Gamiño // CARATACUA Michoacán. A mezcal production process filmed with a regional musician. Mezcal and regional music share the same rural audience.
2025-11-06 - Clay Pot Distillation, The Most Ancestral Method | Rubén López | Maguey Melate. Clay pot distillation presented as the most ancestral method. The technique survives in a small number of Oaxacan villages.
2026-03-17 - Cómo se hace el Mezcal Artesanal: El proceso completo desde Oaxaca. The complete artisanal mezcal process. Agave hearts are roasted in a rock-lined pit rather than baked in a masonry oven.
2026-05-28 - "Las Pulquerías Más Antiguas de la CDMX y su Historia Oculta". An account of the oldest pulquerías of Mexico City and their history. Several claim continuous operation for over a century.
2026 - The spine of the white maguey. A thorn of Agave americana, family Asparagaceae. Photographed 2026. The terminal spine was used as a needle, with the leaf fibre still attached to it as thread.
2026-07-09 - Del Agave al Mezcal: Proceso Artesanal, Ahumado y Agaves Silvestres | Legado del Agave. An account of the artisanal mezcal process from agave to smoke. The roast is what separates mezcal visually from tequila.
2026-07-09 - La Verdadera Historia del Pulque Cómo la Industria Cervecera Desprestigió la Bebida Ancestral de Méx. An account of how the brewing industry undermined pulque. European immigrant brewers ran disparagement campaigns positioning beer as hygienic and modern.
2026-08-10 - DESTILERÍA: PALENQUE PASION ANCESTRAL en SANTA CATARINA MINAS, OAXACA. Destilación en Ollas de Barro. A distillery at Santa Catarina Minas filmed for an agave channel. The palenque is a working farm rather than a factory.