Tepache de Piña Jarocho

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •1-gallon glass vitrolero or a glazed clay olla
• •Manta de cielo (cheesecloth) and kitchen string
• •Wooden spoon (never metal)
• •Small saucepan for the syrup
• •Fine-mesh strainer

Instructions

1. 1

   Scrub and cut the pineapple

   Scrub the whole pineapple under cold running water, skin and all. You are going to ferment the rind, and the wild yeast that lives on that skin is your leaven, so wash off the dirt but do not scrub it sterile and never use soap. Cut off the crown and the base. Slice the rind away in wide strips and drop them into your vessel along with the core. Save the sweet flesh to eat. The skins and the core carry all the sugar and yeast this drink needs.

   A ripe market pineapple that has not been waxed and over-handled carries livelier yeast than a polished supermarket one. Smell the base before you buy. It should smell like sweet pineapple, not like nothing.
2. 2

   Make the piloncillo syrup

   In a small saucepan, combine 2 cups of the water with the piloncillo, canela, cloves, and allspice. Warm over medium heat, stirring now and then, just until the piloncillo melts completely into the water. Do not boil it down. You want it dissolved, not reduced. Pull it off the heat and let it cool all the way to room temperature. This part matters: hot syrup poured over the rinds will kill the yeast, and a dead ferment goes nowhere.

3. 3

   Combine in the vessel

   Pour the cooled syrup over the pineapple rinds and core. Add the rest of the water, 3 to 4 liters in all depending on how strong you want it, until the rinds float freely. Stir with a wooden spoon. Never metal. As the drink ferments it turns acidic, and acid reacts with aluminum and tin and leaves a taste you do not want. Use a big glass vitrolero or a glazed clay olla, the way it sits on the counter all over the Sotavento.

4. 4

   Cover and ferment

   Cover the mouth of the vessel with a piece of manta de cielo or cheesecloth and tie it down with string. The cloth keeps the fruit flies out and lets the ferment breathe. A sealed lid is wrong here. The gas needs somewhere to go. Set the vessel in a warm, shaded corner of the kitchen and leave it alone. Three days in an ordinary kitchen, two if your kitchen runs as hot as a Veracruz afternoon.

   Warmth is the engine. If your house is cold, the ferment crawls and may take four or five days. Find the warmest corner you have, on top of the refrigerator is a good spot, and keep it out of direct sun.
5. 5

   Skim and watch

   By the second day a pale foam will rise and you will hear a faint hiss when you lean close. That is the yeast eating the sugar and breathing out bubbles. Skim the foam off the top once a day with your wooden spoon and lay the cloth back down. Watch the liquid deepen toward amber. The drink is working.

6. 6

   Judge it by smell

   Trust your nose, not the clock. Tepache that is ready smells like ripe pineapple with a winey edge, sweet and sour in the same breath. If it still smells flat and only sweet, give it another day. If it smells sharp and biting like vinegar, you waited too long.

   If you forget it for five or six days, the yeast eats every bit of sugar and the acid takes over. Do not throw it out. You have made vinagre de piña, and it is excellent in a salsa or a chile en escabeche. Nothing wasted, the same as always.
7. 7

   Strain and chill

   Strain the tepache through a fine sieve into a clean jar or pitcher, pressing lightly on the rinds to get the last of it. Taste. If it is too strong or too sweet for you, loosen it with cold water. If it feels thin, stir a spoonful of piloncillo into a little warm water, let it cool, and add it back. Refrigerate until cold. The cold slows the ferment and makes it taste sharper and cleaner.

8. 8

   Serve over ice

   Serve in a clay jarro or a tall glass packed with ice. Drop in a stick of canela if you like, a wedge of pineapple on the rim. This is a hot-weather drink for a hot-weather state, cold and fizzy and sweet-sour, the taste of the Sotavento in the shade of a palapa. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.

Chef Tips

• •Buy a pineapple that is heavy for its size and fragrant at the base. The riper the fruit, the more sugar in the rind and the more wild yeast on the skin. Piloncillo you will find in any Mexican market, dark cones of unrefined cane sugar from cane country like Veracruz itself. Do not swap in white sugar. The minerals and molasses in piloncillo are half the flavor.
• •Glass or clay only. Never ferment tepache in aluminum, tin, or any reactive metal. The acid will pull a metallic taste into the drink and ruin three days of patience.
• •Some people pour a bottle of beer into the jar to force the ferment along. You do not need it. A ripe pineapple and a warm kitchen carry every bit of yeast required. No me vengas con atajos.
• •After three days the drink is lightly alcoholic, less than a beer, more if you let it go longer. It keeps fermenting slowly even in the refrigerator, growing more sour and more fizzy by the day, so drink it within two or three days of straining. Around children, pour from a young, short ferment.

Advance Preparation

• •Tepache is a three-day project in itself, so count backward from when you want to serve it. Start it on a Thursday and it is ready for a Sunday gathering.
• •Once strained and chilled, drink it within two or three days. It keeps fermenting slowly in the cold and turns more sour as it sits.
• •For more fizz, bottle the strained tepache in a swing-top bottle and leave it at room temperature for half a day before chilling. Open it carefully and burp it once a day. The pressure builds fast, and a forgotten bottle can blow its cap.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 275g)