maguey

plural magueys

1. Any of various large agaves of Mexico and the southern US, especially the American aloe, Agave americana.

   Tequilla and mescal are similar, both liquors being distilled fom the maguey plant.

   1899, Consular Reports: Commerce, manufactures, etc, page 375

   3 more examples

   “Well: hardly,” said the Consul, softly as before, casting a suspicious eye for his part in the other direction at some maguey growing beyond the barranca, like a battalion moving up a slope under machine-gun fire.

   1947, Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, page 138

   […]and they rode through strange forests of maguey—the aloe or century plant—with immense flowering stalks that rose forty feet into the desert air.

   1985, Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian […] , →OCLC

   through black fields, where tlachiqueros brought sheepskins slung across their backs full of fresh maguey juice to be fermented, and campesinos in white lined the right-of-way

   2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 424

   Synonyms: agave, pita, century plant