Tequilas, mescal, well-made cocktails, traditional-style hibiscus water and a choice of Mexican beer can accompany all of the above.

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No drink is more Mexican than pulque, not even tequila or mescal.

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You can sample the other varieties, but keep in mind that mescal packs a meaner punch than its kinder cousin tequila.

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We put in pasilla chilis, tomatillos, garlic cloves, and three dried maguey worms the sort of worms that grow on agaves, the plants from which mescal is produced.

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In addition to such iconic items as mescal -- another previously disdained drink that is regaining cachet -- and toasted grasshoppers, they keep an urn of pulque behind the counter.

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They do not actually have a menu but you can go to the bar and ask the friendly owner Arturo for a tobaciche (mescal made from a wild agave).

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Oaxaca is also known as a place where artisanal mescal thrives and tequila is spoken of as an inferior commercial tipple that might as well have been produced in the Coca-Cola bottling plant.

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