Homemade hooch. About 5% alcohol.Tepache is a slightly boozy drink made from mashed up pineapple, skin and all that is left to ferment for 5 days and according to Wikipedia, Tepache is commonly made by inmates in Mexican prison.
This is my first foray into Mexican Prison cuisine, so I'm excited.
This is how I made mine, which is based on Diana Kennedy's version:
Tepache 1 very ripe pineapple (about a 2 pounder) a handful of cinnamon bark, crushed up about 2 inches of ginger, sliced to coins then slightly crushed 10 cups of cold water 1 cup sucanat or brown sugar 1 can of light beer Chop up and then crush up the pineapple into a container large enough to hold all the ingredients. Cover with 8 cups of water. Add cinnamon and ginger. Cover and set in a warm place for 3 days. On the 3rd or 4th day put 1.5 cups of water and the sugar into a saucepan and bring to a simmer until sugar is melted. Let this cool off then add to the fermented pineapple along with the beer. Stir, cover and leave for another day or 2. Strain, strain again and then finally, stain thru cheese cloth. Serve very cold.
You could make it just with the rinds of the pineapple. A nice thing to know if you hate to waste any part of whatever you are preparing.
With all my booze projects I like to take a picture of the lucky person who first gets to taste whatever I have left to ferment. This time the picture as pretty tame, as the tepache was, surprisingly not bad at all.
"It tastes like I'm drinking something I shouldn't" was his first reaction, but he went of to finish the mug.We didn't drink that much of it, so I cannot report on hangover severity.
UPDATE: I drank all of it over a 4 hour period of time. Adding fresh lime juice made it taste really good. Adding rum to it makes it taste good and will get you drunk. Very mild if any hangover.
8 comments:
Pure genius.
I love tepache! can't wait to get some good pineapples at the store.
try it without beer, there is no beer in prison or before the white man was here. use a double fermentation process
Tepache is the best drink that you could have in a hot place I used to drink it when I went to the beach with my friends.
The advertisement is good but I don't know why people always use the silver color in their website, I think you should change the style, because it'd be tired if you read each line.
2j3j
Very helpful info, much thanks for your post.
I suppose one and all should browse on it.
There's NO beer added to Tepache. There IS mezcal!
Tepache is not commonly made in prisons (Wikipedia's wrong)
It IS a very old beverage dating back, waaay back, like as old as chocolate, and is enjoyed by people of all ages.
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