Recipe Archive

Beverages

Beverages include bright refreshers, hot drinks, smoothies, cocktails, and alcohol-free options where balance and garnish matter as much as the base.

602 recipes

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Recipes

Agua de Betabel Aguascalentense de Cuaresma

Chef Lupita

Agua de Betabel Aguascalentense de Cuaresma

Aguascalientes' Lenten agua fresca, jewel-red from cooked beet and full of apple, banana, orange, lettuce, and ground peanuts, served cold when Holy Week meets the Feria de San Marcos.

Agua de Cebada Sonorense

Chef Lupita

Agua de Cebada Sonorense

Sonora and Sinaloa's creamy malted barley water, built on toasted cebada perla, Mexican canela, vanilla from Papantla, and evaporated milk. Pink-beige, rich, and served cold over heavy ice in a heavy glass tumbler. Liquid cookie comfort the northwest way.

Agua de Chaya con Limón

Chef Lupita

Agua de Chaya con Limón

Yucatán's everyday tonic of boiled chaya leaves blended with lima agria, sugar, and ice. The bright green jarra that sits on every Peninsula table from Mérida to Valladolid.

Agua de Chaya con Piña

Chef Lupita

Agua de Chaya con Piña

Yucatán's signature green agua fresca, chaya leaves blanched and blended with ripe pineapple and lima agria, served ice-cold from a sweating glass jarra against the Mérida heat.

Agua de Chaya Tabasqueña

Chef Lupita

Agua de Chaya Tabasqueña

Tabasco's daily green refresher from the Chontalpa, made with blanched chaya leaves, limón criollo, and piloncillo, poured over ice for the kind of heat that makes the kitchen slow down.

Agua de Chía Chiapaneca

Chef Lupita

Agua de Chía Chiapaneca

Los Altos de Chiapas drink this agua cold, with chía seeds suspended like tiny pearls, limón criollo for sharpness, and piloncillo for a cane-deep sweetness that belongs to the market.

Agua de Chilacayota

Chef Lupita

Agua de Chilacayota

Oaxaca's market agua fresca built on chilacayota squash, piloncillo, and Mexican canela, served cold with the spaghetti-like strands of squash and toasted seeds floating in the glass.

Agua de Ciruela Amarilla Sinaloense

Chef Lupita

Agua de Ciruela Amarilla Sinaloense

Sinaloa's seasonal yellow plum water from the orchards around Aguacaliente de Gárate. Small native ciruelas bruised whole into cold water with piloncillo and a strip of lime peel. Tangy, floral, in season for only a few weeks.

Água de Coco

Chef Juliana

Água de Coco

You think opening a coconut belongs to the beach vendor. It doesn't. Chill the fruit, shave the cap, tap a small door, and you've solved the cold drink beside your pê-efe.

Agua de Garambullo de la Sierra Gorda

Chef Lupita

Agua de Garambullo de la Sierra Gorda

Querétaro's Sierra Gorda refresher made from July garambullo berries, cold water, and just enough sugar, a deep purple drink that tastes of cactus fruit, limestone soil, and market patience.

Agua de Jamaica del Valle de Mexico

Chef Lupita

Agua de Jamaica del Valle de Mexico

Ciudad de Mexico's market-table agua fresca, made from dried flor de jamaica simmered until the water turns garnet, then chilled and poured over ice for hot afternoons.

Agua de Jamaica Guerrerense

Chef Lupita

Agua de Jamaica Guerrerense

Guerrero's hibiscus water, made with flor de jamaica from Tecoanapa, steeped dark with Mexican canela and clavo de olor, then served cold over ice for the coastal heat.

Agua de Jamaica Oaxaqueña

Chef Lupita

Agua de Jamaica Oaxaqueña

Oaxaca's deep-red hibiscus agua, steeped slow with piloncillo, canela, and a strip of orange peel. The pitcher that sits on every comedor table from Tlacolula to Juchitan.

Agua de Jamaica Yucateca

Chef Lupita

Agua de Jamaica Yucateca

Yucatán's hibiscus agua, flor de jamaica steeped off the heat with canela and pimienta gorda, sweetened with piloncillo, and chilled until the deep ruby color is the most-poured drink on the Peninsula.

Agua de Lima Yucateca

Chef Lupita

Agua de Lima Yucateca

The Peninsula's floral sour-lime refresher, juiced cold and perfumed with a single strip of peel. The aroma is what makes it Yucatecan, and a Persian lime will not get you there.

Agua de Limón con Chía

Chef Lupita

Agua de Limón con Chía

Ciudad de México's market limeade, built from limón criollo, bloomed chia, cane sugar, and cold water, the glass vitrolero drink that keeps an outdoor table steady.

Agua de Matalí Tabasqueña

Chef Lupita

Agua de Matalí Tabasqueña

Tabasco's Chontalpa refresher turns purple matalí leaves into a bright pink agua with limón criollo, sugar, and ice, the kind of drink that belongs beside a clay pitcher on a hot table.

Agua de Nanche Sinaloense

Chef Lupita

Agua de Nanche Sinaloense

Sinaloa's most divisive agua fresca, made from ripe yellow nanche and a little piloncillo, cloudy and pungent and unmistakable. You either grew up with it or you spit it out the first time. There is no middle.

Agua de Palmito Potosino

Chef Lupita

Agua de Palmito Potosino

San Luis Potosí's Altiplano drink for May, pale palmito de yuca blended with cold water and cane sugar, served icy in clay jarritos when the semidesert heat stops pretending.

Agua de Pitahaya Sonorense

Chef Lupita

Agua de Pitahaya Sonorense

Sonora's magenta refresher from the desert organ pipe cactus, mashed by hand with limon and a pinch of sea salt from Bahia de Kino. The color of the Sonoran summer in a heavy glass tumbler.

Agua de Pitaya Yucateca

Chef Lupita

Agua de Pitaya Yucateca

Yucatán's summer agua fresca, made from cactus-fruit pitaya, cold water, lima agria, and just enough sugar to lift the magenta pulp. The drink that turns Mérida's afternoon heat bearable.

Agua de Saramuyo

Chef Lupita

Agua de Saramuyo

Yucatán's sugar apple agua fresca, the cream-white flesh of the saramuyo seeded by hand, blended with cold water and a little sugar until silky. Vanilla-floral, faintly tropical, a Mérida market-day treat.

Agua de Tamarindo

Chef Lupita

Agua de Tamarindo

Ciudad de Mexico's mercado agua fresca, made from whole tamarind pods boiled, rested, pressed, sweetened, and chilled until the glass tastes sweet, sour, and honest.

Agua de Tuna Roja Bajío

Chef Lupita

Agua de Tuna Roja Bajío

Guanajuato's late-summer agua fresca, made when the Bajío nopaleras are heavy with tuna roja, balanced with lime and piloncillo, and strained with restraint.

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