The story
Festival del Cocuy Pecayero in Pecaya
Each May, the towns of Pecaya and the city of Coro in Falcon state host the Festival del Patrimonio Gastronomico, built around cocuy pecayero, an ancestral distilled spirit made from the roasted heart of the wild Agave cocui plant that grows on Falcon's dry, semi-arid hillsides, drawing producers, researchers, and cultural bearers together.
In the dry hill country of Falcon state, generations of rural families have distilled a fiery agave spirit called cocuy from the wild-growing Agave cocui, a plant adapted to one of Venezuela's harshest climates.