Sustainable Production of Pulque and Maguey in Mexico: Current Situation and Perspectives

Abstract

Pulque is a traditional Mexican fermented, non-distilled alcoholic beverage produced by fermenting the fresh sap (aguamiel) extracted from several Agave (maguey) species cultivated for pulque production (mainly A. salmiana). This beverage was produced and consumed since Pre-Hispanic times by Mesoamerican civilizations, mainly in the Mexican Central Plateau, and is one of the essential alcoholic beverages produced and consumed during several centuries in Mexico. By 2019, annual pulque production was reported in 171,482 billion liters. Nevertheless, traditional pulque production faces several significant limitations, including the disappearance of large agave plantations and the extent of time required (at least 5 years) to complete the plant maturation for aguamiel extraction; traditional production practices; and the lack of an efficient stabilization process of the fermented product resulting in low shelf life. In opposition, successful examples of sustainable cultivation of maguey species for aguamiel extraction and the fermentation process's industrialization resulted in high-quality pulque production, with international exportation certification. In this contribution, we present a review of the most relevant aspects of the history and commercial relevance of pulque, the causes that resulted in its production debacle during the first half of the twentieth century, the current situation of its traditional production, and the successful efforts of industrial production of the beverage. We describe recent results on the analysis of the physicochemical characteristics of aguamiel and on the microbiology of the beverage explored by metagenomic techniques that can be proposed as a baseline to redefine the quality criteria of the beverage and to define for the first time a microbiological core to optimize its production. We describe the relevance of maguey species for aguamiel production as a fundamental element of agroforestry and the relevance of its sustainable production, in four sustainable plantation models to maintain a stable plant population to ensure the continuous extraction of aguamiel and pulque production. Finally, we describe some successful examples of beverage industrialization and potential applications of several microorganisms isolated from aguamiel, pulque, aguamiel concentrates, and the maguey to produce high-value bioactive products.

The complete genome of two Lactiplantibacillus plantarum isolates from the traditional Mexican fermented pulque beverage assembled with a combination of PacBio and Illumina platforms

“…The traditional Mexican alcoholic beverage pulque is a source of potential probiotic bacteria ( 1 – 4 ). We report the complete sequences of the genome and the associated plasmids of two Lactiplantibacillus plantarum isolated from pulque with in vitro and in vivo probiotic properties ( 5 ), sequenced by Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) and Illumina NovaSeq platforms.…”

Fermented beverages among indigenous Latin American societies

“…Once in the tanks, a microbial inoculum called "seed" is added, obtained from a previous pulque preparation. It takes about 36 h after inoculation for fermentation to be complete, and the pulque is ready for consumption (Valdivieso Solís et al, 2021).…”

Agave Steroidal Saponins as Potential Bioherbicides

“…The SFs from all the species in the subgenus Agave exhibited some selective phytotoxic activity against weeds. In this sense, the saponins from the leaves of A. americana, as well as other species of the same subgenus, such as A. tequilana, A. salmiana, A. angustifolia, A. furcroydes, A. hookeri, A. inaequidens, A. marmorata or A. atrovirens [56,57], are already cultivated to produce distilled or non-distilled alcoholic beverages. The saponins from the leaves of these species could be a potential source of ecoherbicides.…”