The alcoholic beverage the Aztecs made from the maguey plant was pulque.
Pulque is produced by fermenting aguamiel, the sweet sap collected from mature maguey, or agave, plants. The finished drink is milky-white, lightly foamy, somewhat viscous, and usually mildly alcoholic. It was made in central Mexico long before European contact and remains associated with that region.
Among the Aztecs, pulque was more than an everyday beverage. It had sacred associations and its consumption was regulated by social and religious rules. After the Spanish conquest, those restrictions weakened, and pulque became more widely consumed. Its popularity later peaked in the late nineteenth century, when large pulque haciendas operated in Mexico.
Pulque is often mixed up with mezcal and tequila because all three are linked to agave. The distinction is production: pulque comes from fermented sap, while mezcal and tequila are distilled from cooked agave hearts. Pulque was also known by the Nahuatl term octli.