Canoa

Tahonas are cool and all, but nothing quite matches the drama of watching a man club a roasted piña to pulp in a canoa–a  hollowed out tree trunk that resembles a canoe. The verbiage makes complete sense because these vessels look so much like canoes that some might actually be seaworthy, or at least ready for a quick turn around your local lake. Canoas are commonly used in tabernas by raicilla producers, but can be found in other parts of Mexico as well. 

Note: Canoe is one of the few English words to have made the leap from Spanish. The Spaniards adopted the term from the indigenous Arawakan people of Haiti who, at least as far as Columbus recorded it, used the word “canaoua” to refer to hollowed out tree trunks used as sea going vessels.