A fermented agave drink that predates the conquest, and the century-old bars where the city still drinks it.
Pulque
Fermented — not distilled — sap of the maguey agave, drunk in central Mexico for well over a thousand years. It is white, viscous, slightly sour, mildly alcoholic at around 4 to 6 per cent, and it does not travel or keep, which is why it is essentially unknown outside Mexico.
It was sacred to the Aztecs and its consumption was restricted to priests, the elderly and certain ceremonies, with severe penalties for public drunkenness.
Under Spanish rule it became the drink of the poor. In the nineteenth century pulquerías were everywhere in Mexico City. Then beer companies ran a sustained campaign associating it with filth and backwardness, and it collapsed.
It has come back since around 2010, particularly with younger drinkers, and there are now new pulquerías alongside the surviving old ones.
Curados are pulque flavoured with fruit, nuts, oats or vegetables, and are the usual entry point.
Las Duelistas in the Centro is the best-known revived pulquería, painted floor to ceiling with psychedelic murals. La Hija de los Apaches and Pulquería Insurgentes are others.
Mezcal and tequila
Tequila is mezcal made from blue agave in a defined region. Mezcal is the broader category, made from many agave species, and traditionally roasted in earth pits, which is where the smoke comes from.
Sip it. Do not shoot it, and do not put it in a mixer if it is any good. It is often served with orange slices and sal de gusano, salt ground with toasted agave worm and chilli.
Mexico City has a great many mezcalerías, concentrated in Roma, Condesa and the Centro. Bósforo in the Centro is dark, tiny and excellent.
Cantinas
The traditional bar — historically male-only, and by law until the 1980s. They are now mixed, and several of the old ones are institutions.
La Ópera on Cinco de Mayo, from 1876, with a carved ceiling and a bullet hole in it said to have been put there by Pancho Villa.
Cantina Tío Pepe, from 1869. Salón España. La Faena, hung with bullfighting costumes.
Botanas are the point: free food brought with drinks, course after course, increasing in substance the longer you stay. In a good cantina you do not order food at all.
Practicalities
Cantinas open from early afternoon and many close by ten or eleven.
Cash in the older places.
Tipping is 10 to 15 per cent as elsewhere.
Mexico’s drink-driving enforcement includes random breath testing — the alcoholímetro — and Uber is cheap. Use it.
More Food & Drink
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Pork on a vertical spit with a pineapple on top — a Lebanese method, a Mexican result, and the best thing to eat in the city.
Mercado de San Juan
The city's gourmet market, where chefs buy and where you can eat crocodile, ant larvae and very good cheese at the same counter.