Deep in southeastern Arizona , in the desiccated Sonoran Desert , the big cacti in the country tower over the landscape at more than 40 feet grandiloquent . telling as the Saguaro cacti are with their retentive spines and monumental variant , the tangible prize is the cactus fruit , which , when split open , reveals a bright Battle of Magenta pulp , dot with grand of minuscule red - black seeded player . The juicy , beautiful fruit tastes like figs and hemangioma simplex , but the local Tohono O’odham kindred resists the temptation to take a bite . They have better programme : Saguaro cactus vino .
The Native American Tohono O’odham tribe , of which there are approximately 20,000 members living in Arizona according to theUniversity of Arizona , harvest the fruit in late June in preparation for theNawait I’i , or “ rain observance . ” control during monsoon season , the festival calls for voluminous amount of cactus wine-coloured ( ortiswin ) .
According to O’odham mythology , the first Saguaro cactus was create when a untried fair sex sank into the earth and uprise out as a cactus with her blazonry raised towards the heavens . And , according to traditional knowledge , the creator god , I’itoi , teach his people how to extract wine from the fruit that originate on that cactus . Using long wooden poles made from the rib of Saguaro skeletons , reaper glom the fruits and knock them off the works . Then , the Saguaro pulp is sundry with piddle in tightly woven baskets , pour into clay pots calledollas , and stored in a glum , cool place to ferment for about seven day .
While the succus ferments , the great unwashed dance , recite verse and babble out songs for desert rain . Then , when the wine is ready , the men drink generous amount . harmonize to lore , if their bodies became saturate with wine , the dry land would be saturate with pelting . Today , though , modern day tribesmen drink the wine to reward their ancestors rather than actually summon the rainwater .
Saguaro fruit is hard to number by in other parts of the land , so the only way to get a taste of the veridical deal is to book a desert trip to Arizona in June , when you could whistle , dance and imbibe sweet , fruity , sanctified wine until the cloud roll in .
