Venezuela's traditional cocuy liquor is making a comeback due to the country's punishing economic crisis, which has put rum, whiskey and even beer financially out of reach for many.

Agave - which grows in the semi-arid mountains of Bobare and is the main ingredient in cocuy - has been used in Venezuela since before the Spanish conquest, and it is being kept alive by liquor artisans such as 84-year-old Dolores Gimenez.

He began producing cocuy at the age of seven in the eastern state of Lara, but just a few "small jars that were well hidden."

"If the police found you with cocuy, they put you in jail and smashed your distillation cylinders," he said at his still.

Since those days, Gimenez - who has 25 children and 103 grandchildren - has refined the process and now provides joy to those who have seen their favorite alcoholic beverages disappear out of reach thanks to inflation that the International Monetary Fund predicts will hit 200,000 percent in 2019.

"It's three years since I touched a beer," Nelson Vargas, 66, said bitterly. His pension is barely worth the equivalent of $3 a month - the price of just two beers. "Few people drink it. Not us poor," said Vargas, sipping cocuy as a procession of the Virgin of Guadeloupe passes.

Liquor consumption fell 34 percent this year, according to London-based alcoholic beverage analysts IWSR. It also fell 37 percent in 2018. Beer consumption fell by 39 percent in 2018.

It's little surprise given that Venezuela's gross domestic product has shrunk by half since 2013. Consumers "are migrating from traditional drinks like beer and rum to cheaper spirits like rum derivatives or aguardiente," said Carlos Salazar, president of the Chamber of Liquors in the capital Caracas, where sales are down 50 percent this year.

In 1998, a minimum salary could buy 46 cases of beer, but now, you would need five such salaries to purchase just one. But the search for cheaper alternatives can be deadly.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019