Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 December 1883 — The National Drink of the Mexicans. [ARTICLE]

The National Drink of the Mexicans.

The stranger in Mexico is struck by the prevalence on the tables of bottles of milky-looking fluid, resembling at sight the absinthe and water common tp the Parisian boulevards. It is, however, whiter looking than that. This is the pulque, the national drink, which is to Mexico what lager beer is to Germany and the United States. The stranger usually begins by expressing the greatest disgust at the drink, and winds up by becoming very fond of it in the course of two or three weeks. I had acquired a liking for gose, the peculiar local beer of Leipzig, during a long stay in that city, and as pulque resembles it very much in taste, though not very much in appearance, I took to it at once. Both have the same sourish, mousy and cucumber taste, but pulque is sappy and slippery. It is a very inno-cent-tasting beverage,' and one would think it no more intoxicating than so‘ much milk, but in reality it is fully as strong as the same quantity of Jager beer. It is* the favorite noonday drink, but it will not keep until night. For this reason it is a blessing to Mexico, for the lower classes, who drink nothing else, cannot carouse after nightfall, when they might become disorderly and dangerous.—Cor. Boston Herald. Chicago has a Chinese portrait painter. He has made such rapid strides in his art since his arrival in this country that he can now paint a portrait of one of Chicago’s leading citizens so that it will quite as much resemble the original as it will the artist’s grandfather. All that is ndcessary to prevent it being mistaken for a Chinese Mandarin, is to put the leading citizen’s name under the portrait.