Goat Milk & Tequila

Goat milk and tequila. My sister’s invitation is to get up at the crack of dawn and meet her at the northern end of the San Fernando Valley. From there she will guide me to an undisclosed location to drink goat milk fresh from the tit, mixed with tequila and chocolate. I bring the chocolate; she’ll bring cups & tequila.

I’m up at first light, grating piloncillo (raw sugar) into a baggie. To it, I add unsweetened dutched cacao powder – fruity, bitter, delicious. This chocolate is from a remote finca in Tabasco, a southeastern Mexican state bordering Guatemala. Fit for any Mayan gods who may yet reside there.

It rained hard the night before; an otherworldly, uncharacteristic mist rises from the valley floor. Low clouds ring the mountains, hugging them close. Weak sunlight peaks through, illuminating a startling and brilliant green emerging beneath the dusty ocher, grey, and beige chaparral-covered foothills – a rare moment of smog-less beauty in Panorama City.

At 7:30 am on a cold Sunday morning I meet my sister at our pre-arranged parking lot. She shows up with a man in tow. He’s been living in a van parked outside her driveway for months. Carlos lost his apartment due to gentrification and has yet to find affordable housing. He and my sister have become friends; he will take us to the goats.

Carlos is traveling with his adult son Osvaldo, who lives with him in his van. Osvaldo is a handsome carpenter and plays in a cumbia band. We watch videos of his latest show, bantering in Spanish as Carlos careens around on-ramps weaving his way through the maze of freeways that crisscross the north end of the Valley.

An intrepid driver, Carlos navigates on the fly as he hunts the location of the goats. He has not been to this particular goat farm for a milk-and-tequila ritual before. Since I skipped my usual morning coffee, the ride feels fairly hair-raising – the centrifugal force of whizzing around corners is dizzying, and I’m holding onto van’s handgrip like it’s my new best friend.

I wonder out loud if Carlos can actually read directions on his cell phone and monitor the freeway simultaneously at these speeds. “Only 75 miles an hour, señora!” Carlos insists. My sister tells me he was a professional bus driver in Mexico. I find this one hundred percent believable. Riding in his van feels familiar, reminiscent of frequent back-road trips through the northern Mexican deserts of my childhood – nausea from swooping corners and the faint odor gas fumes included.

An intense debate between Carlos and Osvaldo ensues after several wrong turns. Following a number of increasingly urgent mobile phone calls, we zigzag into a rural looking neighborhood around the corner from a strip club and a Seven-Eleven. A man stands in the middle of the road waving us into a vacant lot. Numerous shaggy trucks jam randomly together. Twenty or so puffer wearing, fog-breathed folk are gathered here to drink fortified goat milk.

As we get out of the truck the stench of goat piss singes our nostrils immediately. My sister grins at me as we wander among dogs, chickens, and others milling around the muddy yard. Roosters crow, and it’s still so cold their breath hangs in the air like suspended smoke rings after each boisterous eruption.

There’s a rickety outdoor table laden with bottles of tequila, lemons, and plastic containers of chocolate powder. The order of the day seems to be: put your cocoa powder and tequila in a Styrofoam cup. Present it to the man with four nanny goats in a pen. Squeeze in warm, frothy goat milk filling it to the brim.

We drink, refreshed, made whole. The flavor is an exotic mix of sweet, pungent, and cream: languidly relaxing but stimulating too, without the least bit of goat gaminess. A voluptuous lady wearing a skintight black skirt and false eyelashes tells me that drinking raw goat milk healed her psoriasis.

I welcome the curious pleasure found in the primordial flavors of fresh milk mixed with tequila. I’m surprised at my relief to find authentic grace and companionship still possible where humans gather for ritual nourishment. It’s nurturing in a way I thought lost in 21st Century, late-capitalist California. I’m glad to be wrong.