Drink
Many different alcoholic beverages were made from fermented maize, honey, pineapple, cactus fruit and other plants. The most common was octli which was made from maguey sap. It is today known as pulque, an Antillean term. It was drunk by all social classes, though some nobles made a point of not downing such a humble beverage. Drinking was tolerated, even for children at some occasions, but getting drunk was not. The penalties could be very stiff, and were stricter for the elite. The first transgression of a commoner would be punished by tearing his house down and sending him off to live in the field like an animal. A noble would generally not get a second chance and could be executed for overindulging in alcohol. Getting drunk appeared to have been more tolerated for elderly people, though the sources diverge as to the exact age. This did not prevent the occasional tragedy of nobles who became alcoholics and drank themselves into poverty, squalor and an early death. An informant of Sahagún told the sad story of a former tlacateccatl, a general and commander of over 8,000 troops:
| “ | He drank up all his land; he sold it all. Tlacateccatl, a valiant warrior, a great warrior, and a great nobleman, sometimes, somewhere on the road where there was travel, lay fallen, drunk, wallowing in ordure. | ” |
Read more about this topic: Aztec Cuisine
Famous quotes containing the word drink:
“She was a charming middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud. I gave her a drink. She was a gal who’d take a drink if she had to knock me down to get the bottle.”
—John Paxton (1911–1985)
“We didn’t want any men in our group. They drink their loans, they don’t work their stores. Why should we have to pay for their irresponsibilities?”
—Brachiate Guioth De Espinosa, Colombian storekeeper. As quoted in the New York Times, p. A6 (July 15, 1994)
“Then came his little acknowledgment:
He asked for a drink at the kitchen door,
An errand he may have had to invent,
But it made my property mine once more.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)