Tepache
Pineapple rind and core fermented two days with piloncillo and spice into a tangy, lightly fizzy drink.
Serving
Drink spec, per drink
Every figure above is per drink and does not move with the count, which is what makes the two service modes comparable. Sugar per litre, strength and standard drinks stay in the units their own authorities publish, because they are figures for comparing rather than for pouring.
Diet and allergen labels are computed from the ingredients listed on this page and nothing else. They cannot account for cross-contamination or for the particular product you buy, and they are not medical or safety guidance.
Ingredients
1 pineapple (300 g)
150 g piloncillo
5 g cinnamon bark
2 g cloves
2 000 ml water
- 1 pineapple (300 g)
- 150 g piloncillo
- 5 g cinnamon bark
- 2 g cloves
- 2 000 ml water
Glass
Vessel
349 ml of liquid, served without ice, inside the 400 ml the glass holds. The build fails if a recipe ever exceeds its stated vessel.
A batch needs a vessel that closes and fits a fridge shelf.
Method
3 steps · 2dCombine the 1 pineapple (300 g), the 150 g piloncillo, the 5 g cinnamon bark and the 2 g cloves in a large jar and pour over the 2 000 ml water, stirring until the piloncillo dissolves.
Cover loosely and leave at room temperature for 2d, away from direct light, skimming any foam that rises.
Strain out the solids and refrigerate until cold before serving.
Using the rind and core rather than the flesh is deliberate rather than frugal: the tougher, more fibrous parts of the fruit carry the wild yeast that starts the ferment, and the sweet flesh is better eaten than fermented away.
Common pitfallA ferment left going much past two days at a warm room temperature turns distinctly more alcoholic and vinegary, tipping from tepache's usual tang toward something closer to a fruit vinegar.
SafetyThe jar is covered loosely rather than sealed, since wild fermentation produces real carbon dioxide from the first day. A batch that smells sharply of solvent, or grows fuzzy or coloured patches rather than a thin, even layer of foam, has gone wrong and should be discarded rather than strained and served.
Keeping and make-ahead
Batched ahead, this keeps sealed and cold. The water line the engine adds is the dilution figure from the spec panel, not a rule of thumb.
About
A lightly fermented Mexican drink whose name and concept reach back to a pre-Hispanic corn ferment, though the pineapple that defines it today is a considerably later, well-documented substitution.
The word tepache comes from the Nahuatl tepiātl, recorded as a drink made from raw corn and given to those feeling faint, and the drink's roots among the Nahua people of central Mexico go back to before the Spanish conquest 1. That corn-based drink is a different thing from the pineapple ferment sold under the same name today, and the written record shows tepache was never one fixed recipe even once it moved away from corn: a Spanish colonial report from 1791 already lists more than one version, including one made by fermenting pulque with brown sugar and anise, and an 1891 bulletin from Puebla instead describes fermenting brown sugar in a maceration of pineapple rind with spices, much closer to the drink most people now mean by the name 2.
Pineapple's dominance is therefore a real but gradual shift rather than a single dated event, and even now it is not universal: vendors across Mexico also make tepache from tamarind, apple, banana and other fruit, fermented the same way 2. What has stayed constant is the method rather than the fruit: a short, spontaneous fermentation driven by wild yeast, typically finished within a couple of days, that produces a tangy, faintly fizzy drink with only a trace of alcohol rather than a genuinely intoxicating one 12.
- 1Tepacheen.wikipedia.org
- 2Not Just Pineapples: In Favor of a More Expansive Definition of Tepachedrinkingfolk.com