• 1. Where to Stay
• 2. Where to Eat
• 3. What to Do
• 4. Insider’s Tip
• 5. An Oddball Day

Enjoy the pulque juice that comes from the prickly maguey plant.   (Photo: Flickr: Crystalline Radical)

Considered sacred by the Aztecs, pulque is an alcoholic drink fermented from the maguey plant. You can find it in cans in New York, but drink it out of the barrel at La Pirata (13 de Septiembre, Escandón; no phone), where the floors are covered in sawdust and black-and-white photos of nude women adorn the walls. The pulque, which is combined with different flavors—oats and pine nut are the most popular—costs 80 cents a liter.

Published on Dec 3, 2009 as a web exclusive.