When I wrote the Pulque post a couple of months back, I was still polishing off an Against the Day reread that had carried me through the Americas. Little did I know, having just recently left Mexico, I was about to encounter a passage bearing a couple of the most specifically Mexican drinks in the Pynchonian oeuvre; drinks which, somehow, had never made it onto The List!

About a hundred pages from the end of AtD, Frank is in the twin states of Chiapas and drunkenness:

For this particular stretch of the Pacific slope, Tapachula was town—you wanted to relax or raise hell or both at the same time, you went in to Tapachula. Frank tended to spend time at a cantina called El Quetzal Dormido, drinking either maguey brandy from Comitán or the at first horrible but after a while sort of interesting local moonshine known as pox, and dancing with or lighting panatelas for a girl named Melpómene who’d drifted down from the ruins and fireflies of Palenque […]

Against the Day, p. 990.

How did I miss pox and maguey brandy when I first read Against the Day?? I was already Drunk Pynchoning at that point, so one would think I would have been alert to such matters. Perhaps the “drunk” bit was to blame. Or else I was just in a bit of page-990 stupor at the time.

Well, better late than never. Generally, I love finding a drink that’s previously slipped through my fingers here. Occasionally someone will comment on The List identifying something I’ve missed. But when it’s a regional specialty of a far distant country I’ve just left, the feelings are a bit more complicated.

I complained about all this last time we were here, drinking Orizaba beer. Well, a few more weeks of head in hands went by, and my threshold for tolerable shipping rates grew unprecedentedly high. I found a tequila shop in San Diego who had some of each of the licores in question and were willing to send them across the seas to me, and hit yes please. And now I find myself with una botella de pox y una de comiteco.

What are they exactly? Our narrator, focalised through Frank, describes pox as a local moonshine with charms not immediately obvious. It is definitely local, produced only in the state of Chiapas. The moonshine comparison makes sense too; pox is made from corn, wheat, and sugarcane, a mix that will produce a result much closer to the American moonshine’s of Frank’s youth than your more typical agave-based Mexican distillates.

The other thing Frank had on rotation was “maguey brandy from Comitán.” Maguey brandy would at first suggest tequila or mezcal, those being the better known “brandies” distilled from the maguey (aka agave) plant. But the Comitán angle takes us elsewhere. Comitán is another city in Chiapas, 240 km inland from where Frank is drinking in Tapachula. It’s not mezcal country. It is, however, the home of a spirit called “comiteco,” made from maguey sap (à la pulque!) beefed up with cane sugar, fermented, and distilled. That’s the stuff!

Both comiteco and pox have their history in pre-Colombian fermented beverages from the region. According to an interesting history on the site of the American importer, comiteco evolved out of a fermented drink made by the Tojolabal indigenous community. This was a local variety of pulque, made from the fermented sap of the specific agave variety native to the area. Pox was originally produced by the Tzotzil Mayan people, who used it in religious ceremonies (the name means medicine). In both cases, distillation was a post-Colombian addition to the production process. Both are pretty different from more well known agave-based Mexican spirits. Tequila and mezcal are based on the roasted or steamed heart of the agave plant, whereas comiteco is derived from the sap, and pox doesn’t contain agave at all.

The bottles I have summoned across the seas at great expense are the D’Antaño Blanco Comiteco and the Siglo Cero Pox. What are they like?

First up, pox. The aroma has a fair bit going on. It’s fruity in an overripe peach and banana sort of way. A little peppery, a bit of funk. But also quite rich. The flavour is very moonshine-like, with a wheaty oiliness and spicy alcohol. It evokes a wheaty bourbon, minus all the barrel character. On top of that, there’s a moderate herbal, earthy character, with notes of sage and coriander, plus more overripe peach and some orange. I struggle to pick much corn character, interestingly. Overall, it is a very pleasant, subtle, delicate, moonshine-like spirit.

The comiteco, despite not containing corn, evokes corn much more strongly in the aroma. It also smells of sap, honey, raisins, and herbs, as well as a hint of acetone. The flavour is moderately sweet and somewhat tropical. I’m getting pineapple and other white rum-like notes, as well as a herbal, funky element. Really interesting, enjoyable stuff.

I’m drinking them both neat for scientific purposes here, but they both taste like they’d go well in a cocktail of some sort. The comiteco would be a great sub for white rum in a mojito. The pox I can imagine taking the place of gin in a negroni. Either would go great in something pineappley.

Overall, I prefer the comiteco. But the pox certainly isn’t as horrible as Frank would have you believe. Of course, this bottle may well be an export-only, waterered-down-for-tourists shadow of the true pox. I’ll just have to get back to Mexico myself, check out those Palenque ruins and fireflies, and raise some poxy hell in Tapachula.