The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-09-06
WHAT MEXICANS EAT.
Queer Things Upon Which
They Wax Fat.
ORIGIN OF THE COCKTAIL.
Cheapness OF Beer-Hotels and How
They Are Kept-Peep ut the
Native Markets.

cheapest beer in the world. You can buy
IL all over Mexico for q cent glass, and
there are thousand licensed shops in
Mexico City. The city gets 81, 600 day
revenue from these shops, and 100000
pints of this liquor are sold here every
day. This makes two tumblers to each
man, woman and child in the capitol, and
the consumption throughout the re-
mainder of the country is proportionately
great. The Mexican beer is called puldue.
1t Is natures own beer, and il is made
from the sap of cactus plant of the same
species as the century plant. This grows
in Mexico to height of from to IS feet.
1t is made up of great green leaves, whic
are foot wide at the bottom, and whieh
are often inches thick and or 10 feet
long. These leaves start up from the
ground around a green cone, which is a
foot thick at the base, and which ends in q
point as sharp as needle. 1t takes about
ten years for this cone to grow to its
proper size, and if it is left flower grows
upon 1t and the plant, after blossoming,
dies. Just before blossoming, however,
IL Is ready for pulque making. This is
done by cutting the cone out of the plant
ana this leaves great bowl in the plant
about as large as two gallon crock. Into
TINS bowl the sap of the leaves runs in
streams. and each plant will produce from
eight to fifteen quarts of juice per day.
1t continues to yield this amount for six
months, and one plant will produce bar
rels and sometimes hogsheads of LIQUOR.
This liquor is the natural beer. It flows
into the bowl as sweet as sugar and as
clear as crystal. After twenty-four hours.
however, its color has changed to that of
al a6 ri,fII . hoe
and it tastes like buttermilk. 1t begins to
smell, and its odor and strength increases
as it grows older so that for block
around pulque shop you have the smell
of a iimburger cheese factory, and you can
shut your eyes and find the saloons by
your nose. The beer has about the same
effect as good Bavarian book. 1t makes
you feel comfortable and too much of it
goes to your head. It acts on your liver
and kidneys and aids digestion. II you
take it towards night it cures your in
somina, and find it an excellent tonic.
PULoUE PEDDLERs AND SHOPS.
This pulque is raised in big plantations.
There are tens of thousands of acres of the
plants growing near Mexico City, and
one railroad receives 81 900 day for carry
ing pulque into the capital. travelled for
and saw the Indian poems gathering the
liquor. Each man had bag of untanned
pig skin on his back, and the Juice was
drawn from the plant into this by means
of long gourd which acted as siphon.
The Indian would poke one end of this
gourd into the hole in the plant, and suck
the air and the juice out and then turn it
into this dirty pig-skin bag. These bags
were made of the hide of a whole hog, and
some of them looked as though they were
not more than two or three days old. The
legs and the mouth of the skin were sewed
up, and when the bag was full of the liquor
these wabbled about, making the bag look
like live animal. The puloue ferments
in these bags. In them it is carried into the
city, and it Is served either from them or
from barrels. The method of dealing it
out to the customers is no more appetiz-
ing than the mode of gathering it. A
dirty Mexican in his shirt sleeves with his
arms bare to the biceps, takes glass the
size of schooner and thrusts his arm into
the barrel up to the elbow and gives you
the pulque with his hands dripping. II
you conquer your nose you drink it, and
the result is not at all bad. These pulque
shops are found in every Mexican block.
They are open from early in the morning
until six o'clock at night, and at this time
they are closed by law, and are not opened
again until the next morning. Mexico
has excellent police regulations in regard
to the poems or common people. The
pulque shops are patronized chiefly by
them and you find less disorder il Mexico
at night than in any city of its size in the
United States. The high-prieed saloons
which sell all kinds of liquors are kept
open until midnight and later, and hear
the billiard balls clicking and the rich for
eigners and well-to-do Mexicans carousing
in the Iturbide bar-room early in the
morning and all day Sunday. The pulque
product. however, is the most profitable
of any liquor production in Mexico and
many of these pulque plantations bring in
from $4,000 TO $12, 600 per year. know
of one man who gets 800 day from his
pulque hacienda, and / am told that r.
NJ. Pulsifer, of the Boston Herald, is con-
nected with company of Americans who
propose to go into pulque making. The
pulque plant is one of the most useful
plants in the world. The fiber makes ex-
cellent thread and the Aztecs used its
thorns for needles. They thatch their
houses with its leaves and in the days OF
Cortez they made paper out of it. This
paper was like papyrus and there are old
Aztec manuscripts in existence which
were made in this way. A number of
other liquors in addition to pulque are
produced from the plant, and in one dis
trict a very fine brandy called Mescal is
produced from it, and Tequila is another
liquor much like Scotch whisky which
comes from the maguey plant. The
leaves of this plant contain thousands OF
fibers, and these make the strongest kind
of bagging and ropes, which are equal in
strength to linen.
THE ORIGIN OF THE COCKTAIL.
The title of our most popular drink
comes from Mexico. The Aztec word for
puIque is pronounced much like octail
and General Scott's troops called the
LIQUOR cocktail, and carried the word back
10 the United States II is said that the
LIQUOR was discovered by Toltec noble,
and that he sent il TO the king by the
hand of his daughter, Miss Cocktail
(Xochitl). The king drank the liquor and
then looked at the maiden. The first
tickled his palate, the second enamored
his heart. 1t was a case of love at first
sight in both instances, and be mar
ried the girl and started a pulque
plantation. From that day to this the
Mexicans have kept themselves saturated
with pulque and Miss Cocktail is one of
the Venuses of Mexican tradition. Mexi-
can brandies are very strong There is
one called Aguardiente. which is made
from sugar cane and which is as strong as
il is cheap. | had sore throat a few days
ago and was advised TO battle my neck IN
this brandy. / found that il made the
skin smart and concluded TO see how