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Alcoholic drinks from Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico

Pox (Tzotzil and Tzeltal cane spirit)pox

Pox (posh) is a DISTILLED spirit of the Chiapas highlands, used in ritual and daily life by Tzotzil, Tzeltal and Chol communities. It was once made from maize stems; today a wash of panela or sugar, maize and wheat bran ferments for about a week and is then distilled once or twice. The process numbers here come from one producer's description in a magazine.

A short entry: the sources we found record only what is said here about Pox itself.

DocumentedAlcoholic drinks8 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedOne family producer's method as described in a magazine feature, with a 200 L wooden vat; no amounts of each ingredient are given.
Spring water[md-pox]
Panela (unrefined cane sugar) and sugar[md-pox]
Maize[md-pox][ojeda2021]
Wheat bran[md-pox]

Total time across the recorded steps: 8 days

Start
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What changes: Spring water, panela, maize, bran and sugar go into a wooden vat

Step 1 of 4
Fill a wooden vat with water, panela, maize, wheat bran and sugar
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Output: sweet maize-and-cane mash.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Pox (posh) is a DISTILLED spirit of the Chiapas highlands, used in ritual and daily life by Tzotzil, Tzeltal and Chol communities. It was once made from maize stems; today a wash of panela or sugar, maize and wheat bran ferments for about a week and is then distilled once or twice. The process numbers here come from one producer's description in a magazine. Made in 4 steps over 8 days. The longest step, cover and ferment into chicha, takes at least 7 days (Martínez Fernández A 2026).

Key numbers
Main stepat least 7 daysReported[md-pox]Cover and ferment into chicha

What makes this one different

Pox is distilled, unlike the fermented maize drinks of Mexico such as pozol or tesgüino. Its wash mixes cane sugar with maize and bran, and older pox was made from maize stems instead of cane.

Related ferments

Safety

Pox is a home-distilled spirit, so its strength varies. Writing about bootleg alcohol that has methanol mixed into it, MSF says methanol cannot be tasted in a drink and that 30 ml of it is enough to kill a person. It says symptoms appear 12 to 24 hours or more after drinking it, and that ethanol drunk at the same time delays them by hours to days. This page describes a village method and is not a home recipe.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Clandestine production of posh, distilled from sugarcane, has been central to Chamula social life since the Spanish conquest, according to a 2001 ethnographic thesis. A review of Mexican fermented drinks notes that pox was usually made from maize stems and is now mostly made from cane.

  1. [ojeda2021] Ojeda-Linares C., Álvarez-Ríos G.D., Figueredo-Urbina C.J. et al. 2021, Traditional fermented beverages of Mexico: a biocultural unseen foodscape, Foods 10(10):2390paper
  2. [polakoff2001] Polakoff Lipman K. 2001, Del trago a la tragedia: las consecuencias del consumo de alcohol en San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, master's thesis, UNAMpaper
  3. [md-pox] Martínez Fernández A., El pox, bebida maya que calienta el corazón, México Desconocido (magazine web page, undated), read 2026-10web
  4. [msf-methanol] Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Q&A Methanol Poisoning, fact sheet (general safety text only)other