El Rancho Supply

Our first Round-Up & Happy Canyon experience in 2024 thanks to our friends the wonderful Harris Sisters Collaborative 🤠 🪶 🙌

Cochineal is a natural red dye derived from the dried bodies of female cochineal insects (Dactylopius coccus), tiny scale insects that feed on prickly pear cacti and produce carminic acid, which yields a brilliant crimson hue (often called carmine or Natural Red 4). 
In Oaxaca, Mexico particularly in Zapotec communities like Teotitlán del Valle generations of master weavers and dyers cultivate these insects on nopal cacti, harvest them by hand, grind the dried bugs (requiring tens of thousands for just a pound of dye), and extract the color in boiling water, often modifying it with additives like lime or iron to produce dozens of shades from fuchsia to deep purple

Ever tried pulque?