Chef Lupita
Agua de Alfalfa
Ciudad de México's highland market agua fresca, fresh alfalfa blended with pineapple and lime until bright green, strained clean, and poured cold from the vitrolero.
Culinary Explorer
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Agua de Nanche Sinaloense
Created by
Sinaloa's most divisive agua fresca, made from ripe yellow nanche and a little piloncillo, cloudy and pungent and unmistakable. You either grew up with it or you spit it out the first time. There is no middle.
Beverages
Mexican
Outdoor Dining
Weeknight
Picnic
15 min
Active Time
0 min cook•15 min total
YieldAbout 2 liters, 8 servings
This is from Sinaloa. The north Pacific coast, the inland sierra above Culiacan, the mercado towns of Mocorito and El Fuerte where the nanche trees grow wild and the women bring buckets of yellow fruit to the stalls in late spring. You will not find this agua in Mexico City unless someone from Sinaloa is making it. It does not travel and it does not assimilate.
Nanche, the fruit, is small, yellow, and difficult. Botanically it is Byrsonima crassifolia. To the nose it is overripe pineapple cut with old cheese. That funk is not a defect. That funk is the entire reason this agua exists. Northern Mexico is the desert pouring into the glass, and Sinaloa drinks bracingly, with bite. Tamarind, jamaica, horchata de coco, agua de cebada with evaporated milk, and this, the most regional of them all. Esto no es comida de un solo Mexico.
My mother never made agua de nanche. Jalisco does not grow nanche the way Sinaloa does, and she would not have known what to do with it. I learned this drink from a woman named Dona Soledad at the central mercado in Culiacan, who pulled a tin cup from a bucket of fruit, mashed it in front of me with the back of a wooden spoon, and told me the only rule: do not break the pits. Break the pits and you ruin it. Three pulses in the blender, no more. Strain coarse, not fine. The cloudiness is the drink. The funk is the drink. No me vengas con atajos.
If you taste this and recoil, I am not insulted. Sinaloa is not asking for your approval. If you taste it and feel something open in your nose and your throat that you have not felt before, welcome. You understand now why a Sinaloense in Mexico City will pay any price for a kilo of fresh nanche in June. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Nanche (Byrsonima crassifolia) is native to tropical and subtropical Mexico and Central America, with archaeological evidence of human use stretching back several thousand years across what is now Sinaloa, Nayarit, and the Pacific lowlands. The fruit was documented by 16th-century Spanish chroniclers, including Francisco Hernandez in his 1577 catalog of New Spain's plants, who noted its strong scent and its medicinal use by indigenous communities for digestive complaints. In Sinaloa, nanche developed two parallel uses, the curado in cane alcohol that became a regional liqueur and the fresh agua sold at mercados during the brief late-spring harvest, and the fresh agua remains the more pungent and less commercialized of the two, rarely surviving the trip out of state.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
ripe yellow nanche (nance)
Quantity
2 cups
stems pinched off, rinsed
cold filtered water
Quantity
8 cups
divided
grated piloncillo
Quantity
1/2 cup (about 3 ounces)
or to taste
lime peel (optional)
Quantity
1 small strip
fine sea salt
Quantity
1 pinch
ice (optional)
Quantity
for serving
lime wedges (optional)
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| ripe yellow nanche (nance)stems pinched off, rinsed | 2 cups |
| cold filtered waterdivided | 8 cups |
| grated piloncilloor to taste | 1/2 cup (about 3 ounces) |
| lime peel (optional) | 1 small strip |
| fine sea salt | 1 pinch |
| ice (optional) | for serving |
| lime wedges (optional) | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Large non-reactive mixing bowl
- •Wooden spoon or molcajete pestle for mashing
- •Blender (used at low speed only)
- •Wide-mesh strainer, not fine-mesh
- •2-liter glass pitcher or jarra
- •Heavy glass tumblers (vasos jarocho) for serving
Instructions
- 1
Smell your nanche first
Tip the nanche into a bowl and lean in close. Ripe nanche smells like overripe pineapple left in the sun, with a sharp cheesy edge that catches in the back of your throat. That funk is the point. If your nanche smells flat, it is not ready yet. Leave it on the counter another day. If it smells alcoholic and your fingers come away sticky, it has gone too far.
Nanche in Sinaloa is sold yellow and bruise-soft at the mercado in pequenas medidas, small tin cups, by the women of Mocorito and Badiraguato. If you find them green and firm, you bought them too early. Wait. - 2
Macerate with piloncillo
Drop the nanche into a non-reactive bowl with the grated piloncillo and the pinch of salt. Mash gently with a wooden spoon or the back of a molcajete pestle. You are not pureeing. You are bruising the fruit so the flesh releases its juice and the piloncillo starts to dissolve into it. Let this sit for ten minutes. The piloncillo will turn syrupy and the smell will deepen.
- 3
Blend with cold water
Scoop the macerated fruit and its syrup into a blender. Add 4 cups of the cold water and the strip of lime peel if you are using it. Pulse, do not puree. You want the flesh broken up and the water turned cloudy yellow-beige, but you do not want to crush the small white pits inside. The pits are bitter and they will turn the whole jug medicinal if you pulverize them. Three or four short pulses. Asi se hace y punto.
If your blender is aggressive, mash the fruit by hand in a bowl with a wooden spoon instead and skip the blender entirely. This is how the senoras at the mercado in Culiacan do it. The pits stay whole and the agua stays clean. - 4
Strain through a coarse mesh
Pour the blended mixture through a wide-mesh strainer set over a large pitcher, pressing gently on the solids with the back of a wooden spoon. Do not push hard. You want the cloudy juice and a little of the pulp, not a smooth puree. The pits, the skins, and the fibrous parts stay behind. The strained liquid should look like turbid lemonade with a beige cast.
- 5
Cut with the remaining water
Pour the remaining 4 cups of cold water into the pitcher and stir. Taste now. Nanche has a sharp, almost fermented edge that some people taste as cheese and some people taste as overripe banana. That funk is the dish. Adjust the piloncillo only if the agua tastes harshly sour. Do not chase a smoother flavor. Smooth nanche is wrong nanche. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo.
- 6
Serve cold over ice
Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving. Pour into heavy glass tumblers over plenty of ice. A wedge of lime on the rim is correct, a small pinch of salt across the top is also correct if you are serving it the way they do at the mariscos stands in Mazatlan. Drink it within 24 hours. After that, the fermentation walks past pleasant into vinegar.
Chef Tips
- •Fresh ripe nanche is the only nanche worth using for this. Frozen nanche from a Mexican grocery is a workable compromise if you are outside Sinaloa, but it will read flatter. Jarred nanche en almibar (in syrup) is for desserts, not aguas. Do not substitute.
- •Three short pulses in the blender. No more. The small white pit inside each nanche is bitter and breaking it ruins the whole pitcher. Preguntale a las senoras del mercado, they will tell you the same thing.
- •Piloncillo, not refined sugar. Refined sugar gives you sweetness and nothing else. Piloncillo brings molasses and minerality that the nanche needs to lean against. If you absolutely cannot find piloncillo, dark muscovado is the closest substitution. White sugar is wrong.
- •Drink this within 24 hours. Nanche is already at the edge of fermentation when it is ripe. Past a day in the refrigerator, the wild yeasts on the fruit skin push the agua into vinegar territory. Make what you will drink today.
Advance Preparation
- •Macerate the nanche with the piloncillo up to two hours ahead and hold in the refrigerator. This deepens the funk in a controlled way.
- •Once strained and cut with water, the agua should be consumed within 24 hours. It will not freeze well, the texture breaks and the aroma dulls.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 250g)
Calories
60 calories
Total Fat
0 g
Saturated Fat
0 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
0 g
Cholesterol
0 mg
Sodium
20 mg
Total Carbohydrates
15 g
Dietary Fiber
1 g
Sugars
13 g
Protein
0 g
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