Alcohol in Ancient Mexico

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Description

Alcohol in Ancient Mexico reconstructs the variety and extent of distillation traditions within the ancient cultures of Mexico, describing in detail the quite a lot of plants and processes used to make such beverages, their prevalence, and their significance for local culture.

The art of distillation arrived in Mexico with the Spaniards within the sixteenth century. Alternatively, well before that time, native skills and to be had resources had contributed to a well-developed tradition of intoxicating beverages, many of which can be still produced and consumed.

In the 1930’s Henry Bruman visited quite a lot of Mexican and Central American Indian tribes to reconstruct the variety and extent of these ancient traditions. He discerned five distinct areas defined by the culturally most significant beverages, all superimposed over the great mescal wine region. Within these five areas he noted wine created from cactus, cactus fruit, cornstalks, and mesquite pods; beer from sprouted maize; and fermented sap from pulque agaves.

Outside the mescal region he observed widespread consumption within the Yucatan of a wine created from fermented honey and balché bark, plus lesser-known beverages in other regions. He also observed the frequent inclusion within the fermentation process of alkaloid-bearing ingredients such as peyote and tobacco, plants whose roots or bark contain saponins—which act as cardiac poisons—or even poisons from certain toads.

Alcohol in Ancient Mexico also considers the relative absence of alcoholic drink within the southwestern United States, the introduction of sills following the Spanish conquest, and conceivable sources for the introduction of coconut wine.

Previously unpublished, the research presented here retains its relevance these days, and the photographs offer an enchanting glimpse at a traditional world that has now almost vanished.

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