Curado

A curado is a pulque that has been "cured" by blending it with a fruit, herb, vegetable, grain, or nut to soften the base ferment's astringent, slightly viscous, slightly sour character. The classical curados of central Mexico include piña (pineapple), fresa (strawberry), guayaba (guava), mango, apio (celery), avena (oats), nuez (walnut), almendra (almond), piñón (pine nut), and jitomate (tomato). The fruit or vegetable is blended fresh, often with a small amount of sugar, and combined with the pulque in the pulquería's service jugs the same day.

The cultural position of the curado has shifted across the past century. Through the early twentieth century, traditional pulquerías served pulque mostly natural (unflavored), and curados were a minor secondary offering. The mid-century decline of pulque (the lager beer takeover, the abandonment of the haciendas pulqueras, the urban-cleanup campaigns that closed thousands of pulquerías in 1940s-1960s CDMX) hollowed out the natural-pulque drinker base. The post-2000 pulque revival, anchored by venues like Las Duelistas and La Risa in Mexico City, brought a younger urban audience back into the pulquerías, and that audience consumes pulque overwhelmingly in curado form.

The purist response holds that pulque is best in its natural state; the revival response holds that the curado is what kept pulque alive through the lean years and is itself a legitimate tradition. Both positions are defensible. The full debate, and the aguamiel-to-pulque-to-curado pipeline, is walked in the culture chapter.