maguey

noun

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.”

   ““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.”

   “[…]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.”

   “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”