The strategy proved eminently successful, with pulque now generally looked-down- upon and imbibed by relatively few people and Mexican- brewed beer ubiquitous, extremely popular and good.

Some adamant admirers of the thick drink made from the juice of various species of agave insist on characterizing as "a myth" the use of a sock or burlap bag containing a small piece of animal or human feces in its manufacture, now or ever.

But fairly common accounts of the practice appear to support the notion that sometimes pulque makers throughout history did use the technique, although they appear to have been in the minority.

Published material on pulque, which when distilled becomes tequila or mescal, includes repeated references to "la muñeca," the textile sack containing the bacteria rich waste that some manufacturers placed in the fermentation barrel to speed the process of converting the drink to an alcoholic one.

Pulque is still consumed in Mexico, mostly in the central highlands and predominantly in rural and poor areas. It has acquired a general connotation of being something for the lower class, while consumption of European-style beer flourished throughout the 20th century.

Mexico today boasts several world-class beers produced domestically, some of them by breweries founded by German immigrants four generations ago.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY

The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) reported this week on work on the pulque-and-beer subject by two of its researchers.

Rodolfo Fernández and Daría Derega, both anthropologists, published a study in the Diario de Campo showing that the "slandering" of pulque was achieved by what effectively amounted to a backhanded campaign of early modern advertising.

The program amounted to a concerted, conscious effort on the part of beer brewers and those invested in that industry to spread the idea, often by word of mouth and by insinuation, "to inhibit the consumption of pulque," the researchers found.

In their study, Fernández and Derega acknowledge that, in some times and places throughout the centuries-long production of pulque in Mexico, "la muñeca," which means "the doll," was employed.

"But that practice, over time, fell into disuse," the researchers said.

"The brewers of beer promoted this calumny to promote the sale of their product based on the slandering of pulque, which had been consumed in the high plains of Mesoamerica since pre-Hispanic times," the study says.

The researchers say that the campaign alleging "the filthy nature" of pulque was backed by the 1934-40 government of President Lázaro Cárdenas, which sought to reduce alcohol consumption in Mexico.

On the other hand, advertising for beer promoted that beverage as "rigorously hygienic and modern, reaching the point of recommending its consumption as a diuretic and as good for the circulation of blood," the authors say.

The researchers note pulque consumption never caught on in some areas of Mexico.

"Pulque is a beverage the taste for which is not easily acquired due to its acrid smell and viscous texture," they say. "It could be said that, for someone not born to a culture of its consumption, it would be difficult to acquire the habit of drinking it."

Though the authors debunk the idea that much or most pulque had fecal bacteria in it, they point out that the drink traditionally was made in containers fashioned from cowhide "which could have had a high content of organic material that was not exactly nutritious."