Please take the following in the spirit they are delivered.
in other words, not too seriously.

So THATS what they think?.

"The pastor of the church asked me how I liked Ixtapa. I told him that it is a very beautiful place, no doubt, but that I didn't especially care for it as it was not real life to me , rather a fantasyland, and that I preferred Zihuatenejo and the surrounding colonias.
He seemed puzzled by the fantasy reference so I explained that many of us Americans save for a year or two or longer to be able to go to a place like Ixtapa or Acapulco or Cancun and blow the whole wad in 2 weeks. Then we return to our ordinary, bill paying life.
He, and others, assumed that Americans ALWAYS live and spend as observed on vacation, and this promotes the desire of some Mexicans to migrate to the US."

Posted by Alex in TJ on Mexico Connect Forum.

Fanny

If you have the good fortune of knowing that you are going to be eating mole, don't wear white! Trust Fanny. Even if you never spill on that white Oaxacan wedding shirt, mole has an independent will. It will jump off your fork and fling itself onto your white clothes all on its own!

Posted by Fanny on Mexico Connect Forum.

Some years ago, I was staying in Yelapa at a friend's palapa, and we ran out of Raicilla. So I went with him to the bar on the hill to get more. There was nobody there except a large bartender with two slits for eyes and a kind of red haze behind them. My friend asked for a bottle of raicilla.
The large gentleman reached behind for an empty vodka bottle, put in it a funnel, and filled it from the 'garrafon'. Wrapping a piece of plastic around a bit of old corn cob and ramming it home as a cork, he handed it to my friend who paid him. Holding the bottle aloft we saw a fly floating around inside the bottle. Using his reasonably good Spanish, my friend said
"What is this fly doing in my bottle of Raicilla ?".
Without the slightest hesitation, the bartender replied "El es muy contento" - (He is very happy)

I have been asking Gil (husband of Lucy, owner of Lucy's CuCu Cabaña, see Shopping) to write a couple of paragraphs for this page. At last he did, all 5 pages of a story. So he gets a whole page for his very funny story from the early days here. GoTo- "How I fired my Boss"
This story is included in "Puerto Vallarta on 49 Brain Cells a Day" by Gil Givens, with many other funny stories. Now out is his new book "Refried Brains"
Available at Lucy's CuCu Cabaña & Zoo, Basilio Badillo # 295 and The Net House, I. Vallarta # 232. Also available online at gilgevins.com.

The Story of Raicilla from <tequilamescal.com>

Travelers along the western seaboard of Mexico in the vicinity of Puerto Vallarta occasionally happen onto roadside vendors of a moonshine mezcal called Raicilla (rye-see-ya). The name Raicilla was originally used to disguise this type of mezcal in order to escape restrictions on alcohol production and the related taxes. My experience has always been that the sale of Raicilla was somewhat clandestine; sales being made on side streets or in small palapas clinging to the mountainsides at the edge of town. Packaging was usually a screwtop Coke bottle or some other recyclable container and the quality of the beverage verged on the raw side. Behind the harsh flavor, there was always an interesting aftertaste that brought me back and fueled my search for a smoother more civilized Raicilla.
For the past ten years I have crisscrossed Mexico looking for new tequilas and mezcals and adding to my research notes, always searching and sampling. Recently, I discovered a legitimate producer of Raicilla, one who has combined the best of historic techniques with the advantages of modern technology. This is the "Destiladora del Real" located in the mountains above Puerto Vallarta. In the past, this area was famous for it's mining, and the well-paid miners expected their liquor to be of the best quality.
The towns producing Raicilla are San Sebastian del Oeste, Hostotipaquillo, Talpa, Mascota, Atenguillo, Guachinango, and Etzatlan. A combination of reddish brown soils, sun, and rain in this part of western Jalisco created the perfect environment for the growth of the Agave Lechuguilla which is the sugar source for Raicilla. This agave is a member of the botanical Group Crenatae and is identified as Agave Inaequidens or Agave Maximiliana, commonly known as "Pata de Mula" (Mules Foot). Agave Lechugilla is somewhat smaller than the agaves that pulque and tequila are made from. As the agave matures it begins to put up a flowering stalk (quiote); this is cut off so that all of the plants sugars are directed to the heart. About the 8th to 10th year the plant matures and is harvested by "Jimadores" who cut away the spiny outer leaves with long handled knives (coas). The heart of the plant that remains looks like a pineapple and in fact is called a "piña". These piñas, weighing about one hundred pounds, are taken from the fields to the "taberna" where Raicilla processing takes place.

Every step of this process is done completely by hand. The piñas are placed in large wood fired brick ovens (hornos) where they are cooked for 24 hours. After cooking they are chopped into chunks with machetes and beaten into a pulp with large wooden mallets (mazos) in a wooden tray called a"batea".
The crushed agave and juice is placed in 100 liter wooden vats with copper bottoms (perols), or 55gal. drums, where it ferments with the natural plant yeasts for 7 - 9 days. After fermentation is complete, a cap is placed on the vat and sealed with adobe mud, this is connected to a copper distillation coil and the vat heated.
After distilling for about 8 hours, the resulting distillate is a high quality, 100% natural Raicilla known as "Las Raicillas del Real" or "La Punta"