Curado de Piña Horneada Putleco

This is from Putla, in the Mixteca of Oaxaca. Putla Villa de Guerrero, the town that sits at the gateway to the Triqui country, where the Carnaval fills the streets with the chilolos in their masks and the fandango runs until the band can't play anymore. This is the drink they pour at that party. Not mezcal. A curado built from roasted pineapple and aguardiente de caña, the cane spirit they distill in the lowlands of this region.

The pineapple is roasted until the edges char and the sugars turn dark and caramel. That char is the whole point. It's where the smoke comes from. A raw pineapple curado tastes like fruit and alcohol. A roasted one tastes like Putla. Then you rest it for weeks in aguardiente with piloncillo and canela de Ceilán, in a glass jar on a shelf, and you leave it alone. The sugar softens the spirit until the liquor disappears into the sweetness. That's why they call it slow to hit. You drink three small glasses thinking it's gentle, and then the curado reminds you it was never gentle.

I collected this one in Putla during Carnaval, from a family with a row of vitroleros lined up on a wooden shelf, each jar a different fruit, all of them resting for the fiesta. The grandmother told me the aguardiente has to be strong and the piloncillo has to be real, and the rest is patience. No me vengas con atajos. You can't rush a curado. Three weeks is the floor. A month is better. Saber cocinar es saber vivir, and in Putla, setting a jar on the shelf a month before Carnaval is part of knowing how to live.