Ciudad Guzmán, JA—Birdwatchers, beware! There exist a variety of special birds native only to the Mexican states of Jalisco and Colima. These are not your average birds. They only come out in the morning and they might upset the stomach of a novice.
In these western states, you can find the pajerete, or little bird, chereca, or Sinaloan blue jay, palomazo, or big pigeon, polla, or baby chicken (careful, this also means cock or dick,) and galletera, or cookie-cutter but more likely a derivative of gallo for rooster. This is quite the list, but none of these are actually birds; instead, these are the names of a kind of breakfast drink made from raw milk mixed with strong alcohol, often tequila or rum. It is commonly called leche caliente.
When you drive through Jalisco, the landscape is dominated by two agricultural activities: those of tequila and milk. Sure, there are avocados and greenhouses with raspberries, but blue agave farms supplying the tequila industry with its raw material are ubiquitous. Oftentimes, you can see cows roaming through the spiky rows of agave.
In fact, the state of Jalisco produces more tequila and more milk than any other Mexican state. Five states have the right to distill blue agave into a product called tequila, but Jalisco represents about 90% of annual production. The state is also the largest producer of cow milk in Mexico, with 21% of the domestic market, nearly double the next highest state of Coahuila. Colima, much smaller than Jalisco, may not have these statistics, but it is culturally akin to its northern neighbor.
The combination of tequila and raw milk sounds strange at first, but once you see how available the two products are, and how closely they are cultivated, the existence of this boozy breakfast drink begins to make sense. Jaliscienses need to milk their cows everyday and they have a ready supply of tequila. Of course, they will eventually mix the two.
So what exactly is this raw milk drink? I went to the agricultural city of Ciudad Guzmán in Jalisco to find out.
At the far northern end of Ciudad Guzmán, the wall to wall concrete houses of the city give way to fields. On the side of the road, corn, cows, agave, horses, and avocados whizz by. I ride on the back of a friend’s motorcycle at 7 AM on a Saturday. The wind takes the edge off of a mild hangover from the night before, but that’s why we are going out for leche caliente. Here in Guzmán, no weekend of revelry is complete without some alcoholic raw milk to finish off a night out.
As we approach the large lagoon on the outskirts of the city, we pull down a dirt road into a parking lot surrounded by corrals of cows. Other cars and motorcycles are already parked in the dirt lot. The cows have their heads buried in troughs of fodder. The farm displays a simple sign reading “Rancho José Castro A.” Only a local would know that they operate a full blown bar next to their milking operation.
We take our helmets off and walk past the feeding cows into a large open air pavilion equipped with picnic tables. Ranchero music thumps out of speakers overhead. An array of groups are already seated at the picnic tables skimming milk foam out of their cups. Mustachioed ranchers with plaid shirts tucked into their belt-buckled jeans chat together in what must be a daily ritual. Families with young children and grandparents enjoy the weekend setting in the early morning. I assume, without confirmation, that the kids are just drinking chocolate milk. And then there is our contingency; sunglass-wearing young people who might have come straight from the handful of clubs that stay open until dawn. Some even have bottles of beer on the table next to their cups of leche caliente. Their night is ending, or continuing, depending on how you look at it.
The far end of the pavilion is the business end. A group of dairy farmers processes cows and goats. Some are hooked up to machines while others are milked by hand into pails. The goats are ushered up onto a platform one by one to be milked. These dairy farmers work 365 days of the year. Accordingly, there is always leche caliente here. They just pause their morning work for a moment to fill your cup with frothy, raw milk.
We walk up to a bar counter and pay for empty, styrofoam, liter cups, then move down the bar (some seasoned drinkers have brought their own clay jars–much more traditional.) There is a little self-service station equipped with cheap tequila blanca, chocolate powder, instant coffee, cinnamon sugar, and molasses. We pour a shot of tequila and scoop sugar, coffee, and chocolate into our cups according to taste. A boozy chocolate paste sits on the bottom of the styrofoam and we move over to the milking area.
We loiter outside of the milking corral as the workers switch cows out, tie their hind legs together, and begin milking. One rancher takes my cup and holds it beneath an udder as another worker swiftly tugs on the teats of a cow. The process froths the milk and mixes the ingredients together. They milk until a crown of chocolate-colored foam sticks out of the cup. A liter fills up with surprising efficiency. We receive our finished leche caliente and head to a picnic table.
Leche caliente, hot milk. Indeed, the drink is warm having left the body of the cow moments before. We drink it immediately. This is as fresh as milk gets.
I sip through the foamy head and get a mouthful of thin, warm milk. The tequila flavor is not so prominent, but the spirit seems to cut through the creaminess of the fat. It’s subtly flavored by the coffee and chocolate. Mostly, it’s a silky indulgence hidden beneath foam. To start a day, to ward off a hangover, a liter of this stuff is warm and welcoming.
But then I go back for half a liter of goat milk. I want to see if there’s a difference in flavor. I taste the new cup and find a slightly stronger cream flavor. The drink is funkier, but less frothy. A liter and a half of leche caliente down, I begin to walk back to Ciudad Guzmán. But, I quickly realize, my stomach is upset. I take refuge in the first gas station bathroom I walk by for a bit of relief, but my stomach will not fully recover from the raw milk experience until the next day.
If you’ve never drank raw milk before, take it easy. Don’t drink a full liter. Stay away from the goat. Stay near a toilet. The bird names of the drink may well refer to the fluttering I felt in my stomach after drinking it.
Leche caliente and its many other avian nicknames (pajerete, chereca, palomazo, polla, galletera) is a countryside staple in Colima and Jalisco. Ask any young person from the region, they will likely smile and remember hungover mornings spent with a cup of raw milk and tequila. But, the drink comes from the realities of ranch life. As milking must be done every day, leche caliente is an easy, stimulating, and nutritious breakfast for the dairy workers themselves.
Colimotas and Jaliscienses believe that the strong liquor helps to clean the raw milk–it isn’t supposed to be an intoxicating beverage at all. I also heard that it is important to judge the cow before drinking the raw milk. A robust, clean, healthy cow will give safer milk. So they say. Goat milk, allegedly, is “stronger” than cow milk in the stomach.
Pollas and galleteras, the leche caliente names inspired by chickens, include another ingredient in the morning cup: raw egg yolk. It seems obvious why they merit their poultry names. But ultimately, the ingredients of leche caliente go into the cup depending on the taste of the drinker.
The morning tradition is unique to Colima and Jalisco but the drinker should be wary. Yes, the milk is clean and fresh. You get to see it come from the udder itself just before you drink it. But, unlike some of the ranchers who drink the stuff everyday, the novice stomach will surely struggle. So, if you are trying to cure a hangover in Jalisco, be careful not to make yourself feel worse. Drink a bit of leche caliente, but leave the big cups to the locals.
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