Curado de Pox con Cacao

Chiapas, specifically Los Altos around San Cristobal de las Casas, Chamula, and Zinacantan, is where pox lives. Say it properly: posh. It is not tequila, not mezcal, and not a novelty pour for a bar menu. It is a corn, wheat, and cane distillate tied to Tzotzil and Tzeltal ceremonial life, and you treat it with that respect before you put anything in the bottle.

The cacao belongs to Chiapas too, especially the Soconusco coast, where cacao has been cultivated for centuries. When you toast cacao nibs or broken cacao beans on a dry comal, the smell changes from dusty and raw to deep, bitter, and warm. That is the moment the infusion begins. Canela adds roundness. Piloncillo adds body. None of this is syrupy dessert drinking. If it tastes like candy, you lost the point.

I first tasted a cacao curado in San Cristobal, poured neat in a small clay copita, not shaken with ice and decorations. The woman who made it told me, "El cacao manda" (the cacao gives the orders). She was right. You build around the cacao, not over it. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and Chiapas has its own bottle.