Tepache

Mexican, made from the pineapple peel and core you would otherwise throw away, and ready in two to four days. Best ratio of effort to reward in this whole section: you eat the fruit, ferment the garbage, and get a sweet-tart faintly funky drink out of it.

Ingredients

• Peel and core of 1 pineapple, scrubbed before peeling
• 2 quarts water

½–1 cup piloncillo or dark brown sugar

• 1 cinnamon stick
• 3–4 whole cloves (optional)

Directions

Key ingredients

Pineapple peel and core, unrefined sugar, cinnamon.

1. Scrub the whole pineapple before you cut it, because the wild yeast you are relying on lives on the skin — but so does everything else.
2. Use the peel and core. Eat the fruit.
3. Combine peel, core, sugar, cinnamon and water in a crock or wide jar. Cover with a cloth.
4. Ferment 2–4 days at room temperature, stirring daily. Skim any foam. Watch for mold on top and skim it off.
5. Strain and refrigerate. Drink cold, often cut with beer or with lime.

Notes

PROVENANCE. Mine, from the street version rather than a written recipe.

THE WILD YEAST ON THE PEEL DOES THE WORK, which means alcohol content varies and climbs if you let it go. Two days is a soft drink; five days is meaningfully alcoholic. That is a feature in Mexico and something to know about at home.

PILONCILLO MATTERS more than it looks like it should. Unrefined cane sugar brings minerals and molasses notes that white sugar does not, and the ferment goes better on it — the same principle as the mineral requirement in Water Kefir (Tibicos).

WATCH IT, don’t set and forget. This is a short, warm, open ferment on a sugary substrate, which is the one configuration in this section most likely to grow surface mold. Skim foam daily; discard if you get fuzzy colored growth.

STILL OPEN: I have not tried a second bottle ferment on tepache. It should carbonate well, but I have not tested how far the alcohol runs.