The pulque revenue and the pulquerías of New Spain

A crown compilation of 1787 states in its own words that pulque was drunk by the Mexicans before the conquest and is permitted by old laws as a regional drink beneficial to the Indians — and then prints what the treasury made of it: a monopoly branch with its own accountant, printed ordinances of 1671 reissued in 1753, over three million pesos in five years, and a penal scale that punished the same offence differently according to the colour of the offender.