Sheriff’s deputies shut down a San Martin barn where raw-milk
cocktails were sold for $3 to $5 a pop, citing a Hollister couple
for putting the ‘bar’ in ‘barn.’
Gilroy – Sheriff’s deputies shut down a San Martin barn where raw-milk cocktails were sold for $3 to $5 a pop, citing a Hollister couple for putting the ‘bar’ in ‘barn.’
Maria Ceja, 56, and her husband Arturo, 58, sold pajaretes, a brew of raw milk, chocolate and 180-proof alcohol popular in Mexico from a rented property at 14705 Murphy Ave., said Sheriff’s deputy Gabe Sandoval. The drink is produced by milking a cow directly into a cup, adding sugar, chocolate and other condiments, and mixing the hot, creamy concoction with liquor, typically brandy. Sandoval had noticed dozens of cars crowding the San Martin site, and had been called to the barn several times by suspicious neighbors.
“No other activities were going on,” said Sandoval, “but I did notice a lot of people sitting around drinking milk.”
Sandoval contacted an official from the California Department of Food and Agriculture, who told him the Cejas were likely mixing pajaretes. Saturday morning, Sheriff’s deputies, DFA, the Department of Environmental Health and the state Bureau of Livestock Identification sent an undercover officer to the Murphy Avenue barn to buy milk and cheese. When the Cejas sold to her, deputies entered and cited the couple for selling unlicensed, tainted milk produced under unsanitary conditions and for selling alcohol without a license.
Deputies also cited Maria Garcia, a 54-year-old Hollister vendor who shilled menudo and unpasteurized cheese from her stand at the San Martin site.
Raw milk can be sold legally in California, but only by a licensed facility, said Steve Lyle, CDFA spokesman. Sellers of illegal pajaretes and “bathtub cheese” have been shut down “up and down the state,” he added, with 12 sites shuttered and 24 citations issued statewide in 2006. Typically, pajaretes are found at open-air markets, where customers can order up a cocktail straight from the cow, Lyle said.
“It’s not uncommon,” he said, “and from what you’ve described, that’s the type of setting where we usually see it.”
Saturday’s operation was the first such citation Sandoval can recall in South County. Since the bust, the deputy said he’s eyeing similar sites with lots of cows and lots of cars.
“I’d seen it, but I’d never known what was going on,” he said. “Now, these guys aren’t your number one most wanted criminals – but it is a public health issue.”
Health officials from the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control caution against drinking raw milk, warning that the unpasteurized fluid can carry salmonella, E. coli, and Lysteria. Since 2003, 11 illegal milk samples seized from pajaretes sellers have tested positive for either salmonella or Lysteria, said Lyle. (Samples from the San Martin site are still being tested, he said.) Those food-borne pathogens can weaken and even kill children, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems, added Chris Waldrop, director of the Food Policy Institute of the Consumer Federation of America.
But raw-milk advocates dispute those claims, calling the drink “nature’s perfect food.” Sally Fallon, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., said raw milk heals colds and infections, combats asthma, and benefits autistic children. The dangers are overblown, she said, and the bacteria are harmless.
“We recommend that pregnant women drink a quart of raw milk a day,” she said. “These laws are based on the old, discarded paradigm that all germs are bad.”
Waldrop was skeptical.
“Raw milk is not this miracle cure-all,” he said. “The raw milk advocates make a lot of claims, and I’m not sure that all of them are as grounded in science as they’d like.”
Neither Waldrop nor Fallon were familiar with pajaretes. A Web site designed for tourists visiting Jalisco, Mexico mentions the drink as a “typical beverage,” most often made with brandy and chocolate; a 1982 history of a tiny Mexican town named San Jose de Garcia mentions the beverage by name.
“The risk is that people consume this,” he said, “and they’re exposed to food-borne bacteria,” Waldrop said.
