Drinks

Pre-Hispanic drinks from which there is knowledge, were gotten from seeds, fruit, herbs and plants. The traditional and most popular ones were elaborated with corn, cacao or maguey. They are prepared in many different ways and they have different names depending on the ingredients and origin region.


Cacao (cacahuaquahuitl) is a bush cultivated in the Southeast of Mexico and it was so precious that it was used as currency. To prepare chocolate (chocolatl), dry seeds from a tree called pochotl were toasted and they were ground on a metate (a concave stone) placed on red-hot coal so that the paste didn’t get sticky. The gotten paste was mixed with water and sweetened with honey or maguey syrup. Flowers or aromatic herbs were added, which besides flavor gave it color. It was served in decorated jicaras (gourd cups). Cocoa could be ground with flowers called enacaxtliz which are yellow and have a very strong flavor. In Chiapas, it was drank mixed with myrtle flowers (axocopaconi). Mexican nobles and kings drank cocoa aromatized with vanilla (tlilxochitl) which means black flower. It has that name because its fruit turns dark when it dries. This orchid is still cultivated in Papantla, Veracruz. If cocoa is mixed with corn dough it is called champurrado, which is drank hot.

Natives from Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Tabasco and Veracruz still drink it in the morning dissolved in water and they prepare some kind of bars or balls with ground almonds or sugar. Nowadays, there are many ways to prepare chocolate, it is dissolved in milk and can have s Spanish or French style. Cocoa mixed with toasted ground corn is called cacahuapinolli. In Chiapas a mix of chocolate and achiote it is drank as a cold drink called tascalate or haxcalate. In Oaxaca They put cinnamon in it, dissolve it in cold water and they call tejate a foam they prepare with cocoa, corn and Cocolmecan ground reed. If toasted and ground cocoa is prepared with cooked corn, you will be drinking chorote de Tabasco or piznate, name given to it in Nayarit.


Atoles (atolli) are drinks made with corn dough which were and still are in many places of Mexico a basic meal. It is corn dough mixed with water and sweetened with some kind of syrup or is condimented with chili. “Hot atole was prepared or atolli with syrup, with yellow chili and honey; atolli with white flour made with tequexquitl”. The morning jicara (gourd cup) with atole was the morning meal for most of the people. It can be considered a complete dish when beans, chili, epazote or tomato are added to it. It is also served sweetened with syrup, aromatic flowers or fruit such as prunes, tunas, capulin cherries, pineapple or different kinds of honey.

Some native recipes are still kept. I am giving them to you as Francisco Hernandez described them (a doctor of the court of Felipe II). They were also considered with magic qualities and it was thought they cured different diseases.

Ayocomolatolli (acoyote atole): it is an atole with beans and pieces of corn dough, it is made adding epazote to chilatolli, cooked and whole beans. It is an optimum and nice meal.

Chilatolli (atole with chili): chili dissolved in water is added as pleased by the one who is going to drink it.

Chinatolli (atole with chia). The chía (sage leaf)is a little bit toasted on a comal (round plate) and it is reduced to powder, it is mixed with water and beaten. Chili can be added before drinking it.

Nequatolli (atole with honey): This is a refreshing drink, hydromel is added to atole. Some add chili.

Ollontolli (corn ear atole): the corn ear (olote) is burned and reduced to ashes, it is ground and mixed with corn. It is served in glasses and chilocoztli (yellow chili) is added.

Quauhnexatolli (tree atole): it is made with tree ashes, it gets a very special taste, different from the others.

Tlaxcaltolli (tortilla atole): It is made with ground corn.

Xocoatolli (sour atole): The ferment is prepared with black corn in a dough which is kept four or five days. That gives the atole a nice sour flavor. It is condimented with salt and chili.

Yolatolli (white atole): Cook the corn without lime, it is left to be cooled and is dissolved in water to be drunk comfortably. It is said that it ends with thirst, no matter what is causing it.


Pozol (nahuatl pozolli, foamy). It is a solid meal taken as a refreshing and nutritious drink prepared with nixtamal (boiled corn in water with lime). From the gotten dough, balls are made which are fermented and left to rest covered with banana leaves. The dough ball is dissolved in water to be drunk. If it is salty, dry chilies are added and if it is sweet, honey, sugar or cocoa.

The color of pozol depends on the kind of corn used for it: white, yellow or black (also called blue). Some prefer preparing it with tender corn and others with mature.

Pozol is drank by mayas in Yucatan, Campeche and Quintana Roo; also by lacandones, Tzotziles (chamulas), tzeltales, zoques, mames, mochós and choles from Chiapas; chontales and choles of Tabasco and zapotecos from Oaxaca.

Mayan pozol is called sac há (white water) and it was so precious that Landa says Mayas never drank simple water, they always mixed it with corn. A similar Aztec drink was yolatolli. Pozol is also used against fever and for curing some diseases. Do you want to know how? Let’s go to herbalist section in Magic and Party.


FRESH WATER. Let’s take some chía (chiematl) to be refreshed. Chia is a very small seed which is ground . To be drunk, water is added and it is beaten so that lumps are not formed. It is left in the water for a while so that it thickens and then it is sweetened. Some lemon drops can be added. This drink is called bote in Nayarit.

To change flavor and place, in Chihuahua, in the North of Mexico, you can find a drink prepared with capulin called Huikimo. To be very fresh in Veracruz, you can drink verde de xico, a drink made with herbs: anise, basil, lemon balm, hierba del burro. Nowadays some sugar cane or mezcal aguardiente is added. Last century, women were still heard inviting to drink delicious horchata, lemon, pineapple, tamarind and chía waters.


TUBA. It is a foreign alkaline drink, made with the fermentation of the coconut palm’s sap. It can be drank alone or with fresh fruit juice, celery, onion, cinnamon and chili. It is refreshing drink naturalized in Colima and Guerrero. If it is distil it turns into a kind of aguardiente.