Welcome to Xochimilco in Mexico City, I love this part of town, partly because you can go on these really colorful boats called trajineras.
Generally, that's why people come down here to enjoy mariachis and drink micheladas on these boats
But there's another thing here, one of my favorite things in the entire place,
It is called templo de Diana, and it's a pulquería. -It's a hidden jewel.
-Thank you, I've got some friends and a girlfriend, Mariannela, Steve, Brendan and Jody; and we are gonna try
Pulque, one of my favorite drinks here. Let's go
The longer we stay here the louder louder it gets
Pulque has a really interesting history
It was the drink of choice for the Aztecs and people here in Mexico drank it for thousands and thousands of years until
around the 1950s where the beer company started to come to Mexico. They saw this drink pulque in the same niche
they wanted to sell it, it's like a
5% alcohol drink you have with one of the boys after work, so the beer companies went out to destroy
pulque, remove the drink from the market
and they did that, they started a disinformation campaign saying that the same barrels that they ferment Pulque were used for human
feces; it destroyed pulque in
mainstream society and the beer companies
blasted up to the top. This is amazing so these barrels come every single day from the Mexican state of Hidalgo
which is a couple hours away from Mexico City.
The shelf life of pulque is very short they need one of these a day
and it spoils after one day, so this one is fresh, we're here tonight; It's gonna be the one they drink here tomorrow morning
-Aquí abajo, no se si alcanzas a ver el movimiento porque el pulque tiene vida, él solito esta moviéndose.
It's amazing. Ulises, ¿eres el dueño?. -No, yo soy un trabajador aquí.
So Ulises works here, he is the bartender, he is saying a couple interesting things
We have a barrel of natural pulque a barrel of pulque with sugar, and the flavored pulque is called "curados"
So they have Nuez, this is the one they make ostión with,
they have the celery one here.
And he said, to me really interesting, about the natural pulque, there's no sugar no flavor. He says it has life
because we looked in the barrel. You can actually see the pulque is slowly turning and moving
It's a fermented drink and so as it ferments it moves around inside of these fermentation barrels, so the pulque tiene vida,
the pulque is life,
that is what he said.
Now you can still see pulquerias like this, serving pulque to usually an older demographic
but there's a small resurgence of younger folk drinking pulque in Mexico. We love it,
It's a little bit weird and today we ordered some of the weirdest flavors on the menu
I´m gonna make my friends try them. Let's see how they like oyster
It´s like you know, aaaaah!...This is the natural one, the real pulque, the original and now, this one is beet flavor and this one is celery as you can see
Celery, oh slimy celery, this one is mango
This one is Oreo,
this one is chocolate
This one my favorite is oatmeal
-Didn't we order oyster?.- I think so, but they are preparing it because it´s slimy over slimy.
There is this giant one litter glass of natural pulque, so inside this there is no sugar
There's no flavor. It is just the direct fermented cactus sap
It is slimy, it is sour; and Steve
It's gonna be the brave guy
who's gonna put it in his mouth?
All yours Steve
First you got to stir it, stir it stir it...
Yeah
It's really sour, it's like ,it's actually like all the fermented drinks you can get, for example in Peru you have chicha
It's like chicha basically, but it's more slimy way more slimy
Fondo! fondo! fondo!
What is this? what is this?
Oh that little slimy drop, this drink is so so slimy, you have to try it, to understand, they give you sticks
to stir the slime around so there's no stick at the bottom
That's really good. I like it, it is like a vegetable juice
Salty, you can really taste the beet. -It´s salty?! -yeah, it has salt on the rim of the glass
Nice, isn't it?
It's not as... it's not as slimy
It's more watery and it tastes like, it tastes like you pull the beet out of the garden and ate it
I'm pretty sure this guy I mean you can't get an artificial beet flavor or celery flavor for artificial oyster flavor
So I'm pretty sure Ulises is taking beets, grinding them up, and celery as well. He makes these ones that are more vegetable based
Not my favorite though
Are my teeth red? -Yeah
All right
The next on our list of strange pulques to try is apio, apio is celery
and it is very bright green, it looks like they put some tajín on the outside like spices salt
And we have to find a volunteer to have the first zip
You eat the celery first. -No because we don't have anything to stir it with. okay
There´s so much salt
The the honest truth is almost all these drinks
Just tastes exactly like they are, this is celery it tastes like celery with like 400 pounds of salt on it
Maybe they just grind up some celery
So out of 10, what would you give it? -6. -Have you had any celery flavor drinks before? -No
Why? Why should I?
It's like, it's like another vegetable smoothie, especially also because of the texture, is like really thick
I hate war and celery
im gonna take the chilli part
exactly like vegan smoothie
Super healthy for every morning. -How's the Oreo? -The Oreo is really good, is kind of like oreo's syrup. I love it
Is it slimy?
-Yes, it's slimy. But not like in a bad way. It's not like eating, like slime. It just tastes like it's really really thick almost caramel
Have You tried yours yet? -Yeah it´s delicious. -What kind is that one? -This is chocolate
Is it ...what's the texture like? -Slimy.
The second I saw the oyster pulque, my stomach just went brrrrrrr
It looks like someone took
roadkill and stirred in the glass
Steve's face Steve's face. How why do people do that?
First to Try the oyster
Are you gonna do it really? -No. -I´m not gonna do it. -I´ll drink it. -Who? who? who?
I Will do it
-What does it look like? -It kind of looks like testicles like it looks like they're sheep testicles on the inside
smells delicious
It's really good actually kinda tastes like ceviche, no joke it tastes like ceviche
Although the oysters add extra slime to the already slimy drink.
-Are you gonna try some of it? -No
- I guess Mariannela wants to try it
No, I don´t like oysters, I don´t like, nooo
Okay, 3,2,1...
Okay
No he is right,
it tastes like ceviche, like a cocktail
What does it look like? what does it look like?
No no I don't like it
Your turn
Now you have to try it, but like a big drink.
-So this is fermented cactus sap, with I'm guessing canned oysters
Onions, cilantro probably some lemon juice
Hey you know what? It s not actually bad!
The worst part is how goopy
The oysters are, so pulque itself a super slimy, the oysters are like giant loogies hang on your tongue and lips
The crunch from the onions also a bit of Tang from the cilantro, all in all
Like you're saying it tastes like ceviche, and there's not much of a seafood taste to it
This is like clamato on the bottom. It gets a little bit sweet already so I
probably won't have anymore
But I would give it like a four out to ten
I was thinking that I was getting my gag reflex is gonna take a hit, and it was going to come back up
But oyster pulque is not as bad as you might think
Thank you
It seems like the best ones are the nut based pulques, like cacahuate and
Almendras, we had piñón before it was super nice. It's pine nuts. Also the oatmeal's really good
You wouldn't think they be the best ones, but I think they're the winners today
however beet celery and oyster
Not so much
Ok! It's quieted down a lot in here now the bands have left the jukebox is now turned off
The people have stopped yelling and we are finishing up our pulque before
Templo de Diana closes, so pulque on the whole, are we happy we tried it? Steve is still into the natural pulque
Looks like a big glass of... -I'm feeling really German now
Would you try it again?. -I would drink this every night
Jody would you try it again?
Every night and every morning
I guess the party is kicking back up. We're are gonna head back into downtown, Mexico City. Thank you for watching, check out
my buddy Steve,
my buddy Brendan,
my friend Jodie
and this beautiful girl here
Their links are all below in the description, and I'll catch you guys in the next video, experiences over possessions, kick the grind, peace!