yes ma'am, that is backwash on the menu

"One rainy afternoon this past December, while visiting my cousin Martin in Ecuador, I found myself surrounded by eight grinning, scantily clad members of the Shuar, an Amazonian tribe with the distinction of having shrunk its last human head during the Reagan administration. I wasn’t in any kind of danger — just the opposite, in fact — but I’d have given almost anything to escape.
My cousin and I were being welcomed as honored guests, which among the Shuar involves the consumption of chicha, a mildly alcoholic drink that they make from boiled yucca root and human saliva. The situation came as no surprise to me, because I visited the year before, was received with due pomp and politely took a sip from the ceremonial gourd. What was surprising, however, was that I let it happen a second time."
continued at NYT here