Calle Del Embudo

This guide to Calle del Embudo in Bogotá starts at a stall halfway down the narrow, cobbled street, where a vendor still ladles chicha, the fermented corn drink, from a jug into cups. From there it traces how close the tradition came to disappearing: a smear campaign backed by a German brewery founder in the early nineteen hundreds, bans near churches and schools, and the political chaos that swept the capital in 1948. Newspapers of the day blamed the drink for riots that had little to do with it. Look for the totumas, hollowed gourds, still passed hand to hand along the street.