Tequila products, anyone?

From our Obama photo shoot, we boarded a 15 passenger (ish) with a driver, a tour guide, and 12 Fulbright associated people.  We headed out of the city toward Teohuacán (I kinda think this isn't the right name, but I can't find my info at the moment.  I will edit later if need be.  You don't really care.), Aztec ruins about an hour away.  As we headed into the park, we stopped for an agave demonstration.  This woman showed us all the uses for the aloe plant.  There is pigment in the inside used for dying.  There is a plastic-like sheet that pulls away from the stem that was used as paper.  There are strings that can be pulled form it to sew.  They had blankets made from this stuff that were super-soft.  There is honey, or was it just the agave?  At any rate, we were impressed.  We were also in the sun, so sunscreen was passed around, and Gringos moved en masse to the shade.  After that presentation, we also saw some of the stones and the process for making the colors show, etc.  See pictures.  The details are leaving me at the moment.  At the end of the presentation, we were given three samples of tequila.  Great idea before hiking ruins, right?

The first was fermented and meant to taste like a beer.  Luckily, it didn't taste like tequila.  Unfortunately, it was similar to beer.  It was not my favorite.  I had one tiny taste of that before I was satisfied that I didn't like it.  

The second was an almond tequila.  This was strong, but yummy.  I had been given this at our teacher party when I kept refusing their beer.  It was too strong (and I think probably cheap since she pulled it out of a plastic 2-gallon type container!), and I didn't like it.  Maybe it was ambiance, but I liked it at this road stop.  Not enough to drink it all, but it was definitely better than the beer one.

The last one was so strong that I almost fell over smelling it.  And we know I can't smell!  So I had the tiniest taste, to take advantage of the moment.  I'm confident I'll never have to have that again in my life!

We were then granted access to the gift shop (blankets, tequila, aloe products, silver, and masks) and more importantly the bathrooms and water for purchase.