What you have left looks like a golden whiskey.

I keep hearing about this snot. If you feel adventurous just remove the spines and slice the cacti up like you would a cucumber for your salad. Heat in the largest pot you can find (mine holds 1 gallon of water with the cacti in there) until the water surface ripples. Let it ripple until it the water level lowers to the point the cacti might burn and pour off the liquid into a smaller pot. Do that 3 times and reduce. (The smaller the reducing pots footprint is the more you can reduce without risk of burning. Rings will accumulate around the surface so stir to keep that dilluted and in the water.

Filter, drink. No snot. It's how they do it in the "native land". You can tell when your cacti is spent because it won't have or put off any color. What you have left looks like a golden whiskey. There's no need for snot. With a small pot you can get it down to about 3/4 a cup. Very easy to drink. No skin peeling, no core removal, no nada.

Once spring takes hold I'll put some pictures up. It really is as easy as it gets. I've also just straight eaten the cactus too, that works. The taste is the best part.