SC - fermented cactus beer

[Huette von Ahrens]

I just did a dumb thing.  I deleted the message I
wanted to answer!  Sorry!

Anyway, Ras, my first reaction to your question about
cactus was "Pulque".  So I looked it up in the
Encyclopedia Britannica, and found that it too was
from the Agave plant.  

"PULQUE

Mexican beer, cloudy and whitish in appearance, with
sour buttermilk-like flavour, and about 6 percent
alcohol content. It is made from fermented agua miel
("honey water"), the sap of the agave, or maguey,
plant (often called century plant), collected by
cutting the flower bud from a four- to six-year-old
plant, leaving a basinlike cavity. After several
months the cavity walls and surrounding leaf bases are
scraped, the first sap is drawn, and the plant
refills, providing up to 15 pints a day until it dies.
The sap, containing approximately 10 percent sugar, is
fermented in vats for several days, often with the
addition of previously fermented pulque (madre pulque)
to hasten the process. 

The freshly fermented beverage is consumed unaged,
still containing suspended yeast cells, sometimes with
added fruit-juice flavouring (pulque curado). It is
sold in containers, sometimes pasteurized before
bottling, or by the barrel to drinking houses
(pulquerías). An important and inexpensive source of
carbohydrates, amino acids, and vitamins for Mexico's
lower-income population, pulque may in some regions
provide the major liquid intake during the dry
season." 

However, this passage is from another related entry:

"BEER

Types of beer

Beverages similar to beer are produced in Japan (sake,
from rice) and Mexico (pulque, from cactus). In
Nigeria and South Africa, malted sorghum is used to
produce burukutu and Kaffir beers. "

So, this seems to say that pulque is from cactus!

Huette


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