Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A thick fermented alcoholic beverage made in Mexico from various species of agave.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A fermented drink made in Mexico and some countries of Central America from the juice of the a gave or maguey, Agave Americana.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An intoxicating Mexican drink. See agave.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A milk-colored, somewhat viscous Mexican alcoholic drink made from the fermented sap of certain agave plants.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun fermented Mexican drink from juice of various agave plants especially the maguey

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[American Spanish, from Nahuatl poliuhqui, decomposed, lost.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Spanish pulque, possibly from Nahuatl (see the Spanish section, below).

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Examples

  • To assist in its fermentation, however, a little old pulque, _Madre pulque_, as it is called, which has fermented for many days, is added to it, and in twenty-four hours after it leaves the plant, you may imbibe it in all its perfection.

    Life in Mexico Frances Calder��n de la Barca 1843

  • Now that pulque is sold in cans, it is more accessible to people outside the pulque producing regions, but diluted beer can be substituted and the recipe is written to be used with either one.

    Chicken in Pulque Broth: Pollo en Pulque 2007

  • Various types of pozole, mole, whitefish with garlic, fish birria, chichicuilotes (birds indigenous to the Jalisco lakeshores) are served, along with bote, a stew made with beef, pork or chicken, with vegetables usually cooked in pulque and served in a thick sauce.

    The cuisine of Jalisco: la cocina tapatia 2007

  • Various types of pozole, mole, whitefish with garlic, fish birria, chichicuilotes (birds indigenous to the Jalisco lakeshores) are served, along with bote, a stew made with beef, pork or chicken, with vegetables usually cooked in pulque and served in a thick sauce.

    The cuisine of Jalisco: la cocina tapatia 2007

  • Now that pulque is sold in cans, it is more accessible to people outside the pulque producing regions, but diluted beer can be substituted and the recipe is written to be used with either one.

    Chicken in Pulque Broth: Pollo en Pulque 2007

  • Now that pulque is sold in cans, it is more accessible to people outside the pulque producing regions, but diluted beer can be substituted and the recipe is written to be used with either one.

    Chicken in Pulque Broth: Pollo en Pulque 2007

  • Various types of pozole, mole, whitefish with garlic, fish birria, chichicuilotes (birds indigenous to the Jalisco lakeshores) are served, along with bote, a stew made with beef, pork or chicken, with vegetables usually cooked in pulque and served in a thick sauce.

    The cuisine of Jalisco: la cocina tapatia 2007

  • Unlike tequila, another agave-derived drink, pulque is not distilled.

    Lloyd Mexico Economic Report - August 1999 2006

  • Johnny tells me that pulque is used in many recipes here in central Mexico and that his Mexican wife Estela considers it part of the culinary experience of the country.

    Just One And I Have To Go - The Joys Of Pulque 2006

  • Once allowed only to Aztec nobles and priests, pulque is produced by cutting out the center of a Maguey cactus and collecting the liquid which rises from it.

    Just One And I Have To Go - The Joys Of Pulque 2006

  • Fermented agave sap, called pulque, was central to religious rituals and sacrifices in Mexica (Aztec) cultures.

    Plant of the Month: Agave | JSTOR Daily Catherine Halley 2020

Comments

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  • "Beautiful, detailed notation by Aída on pulque and the agave plant."

    The No Variations by Luis Chitarroni, translated by Darren Koolman, p 121

    September 16, 2013

  • Somewhere along the beach in the state of Oaxaca, there's a place called Liza's which has a giant container of pulque behind the bar. I think there's a scorpion and some other stuff floating in its milky depths. Whenever a patron gets too rowdy, the bartenders--Liza's sons--offer a contest to see who can drink the most pulque and prove to be the most macho person there. The offending patron will invariably feel the need to compete, and things will quiet down again after said patron almost immediately passes out after a sip or two.

    September 16, 2013

  • Usage/historical note (and great story) in comment on cabildo. As a footnote to that comment:

    "Made by Mexicans since ancient times, pulque is an alcoholic beverage derived from the sap of the maguey plant."

    Amy Butler Greenfield, A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire (New York: Harper Collins, 2005), 95 footnote.

    October 5, 2017