"Pulque is sent from the estates along the railway in barrels and pig-skins, and the amount consumed in the capital is about 80,000 gallons daily. There is a pulque train daily to the city; we passed it at a side-track, and easily detected its presence by the smell of fermentation.
"The pulque shops are as discernible to the nose as to the eye; they are numerous in all the cities and large towns, and very properly are under the eyes of the police. There are 820 of these shops in the city of Mexico. They pay a license fee to the Government as do beer and wine shops in European countries, and the law requires that they shall close at 6 p.m.; and, what strikes a New Yorker with astonishment, it is enforced, too. The city derives a revenue of a thousand dollars a day from the pulque brought here for sale, in addition to what it receives for shop licenses; the railway probably gets a thousand dollars also for the daily transportation, and altogether the national drink of Mexico costs a great deal of money.
A GLASS OF AGUARDIENTE.
"Liquors called mescal and tequila are distilled from pulque, and contain a larger percentage of alcohol. Then there is a stronger liquor, called aguardiente (burning water), which is literally described by its name. Some gentlemen who have tasted it say that it is like swallowing a torch-like procession or a whole collection of Fourth-of-July fireworks."
