No matter your craving, Oaxaca has a drink for that
Tejate is one of the cornerstone pre-Hispanic drinks of the Oaxaca Valley. Typically made with cocoa, corn, mamey sapote seed, and rosita de cacao — an edible flower that’s often used to season chocolate — it’s renowned for its energizing properties and was originally served to field workers in need of a boost. Today it’s an everyday drink for many Oaxacans, but the process of making it is anything but basic.
While mornings are for atole de maíz, afternoons are for a cold agua de maíz tostado, made with corn kernels that have been roasted over a comal before grinding. Too much heat will burst the kernels and too little will leave them flavorless, but just the right roast caramelizes the sugar and adds some smoky depth to the refreshing drink that’s as much about the texture — pleasingly chunky and grainy — as the taste.
Mezcal gets all the attention, but there’s another locally made spirit worth paying attention to in Oaxaca: rum. Sugar cane first arrived in the Americas from the Canary Islands in the 16th century, spreading via the Spanish from the Caribbean through the rest of the continent, including Mexico and, of course, Oaxaca. Oaxacans began distilling the fermented cane juice into rum, or aguardiente de caña, soon after its earliest cultivation here, and the spiritin Oaxaca’s eastern highlands.