Drink A Seat is a journey through Latin America’s spirits and stories, crafted from over twenty years behind the bar, in the distillery, and one long winding road.

Rooted in a lifelong love of Latin American culture, film, history, and flavors, it invites you to explore the drinks that shape the region’s soul.

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From the bar to the distillery to the winding roads of Latin America, Drink A Seat is built on two decades of hands-on experience and boundless curiosity.

Custom beverage formulation rooted in place. Signature cocktails. Professional photography. Brand, distillery, and bar consulting. Private tastings—and more. Everything I offer is grounded in my story, driven by my own experiences, and shaped by the spirits and cultures of Latin America.

Signature cocktails custom-designed for your brand. Professional images of them for your website and socials!

Custom Cocktails & Professional Photos

Custom beverage formulation. Walk away with a proven recipe to scale.

Beverage Formulation

Take your brand to new heights. With deep roots in the US and LATAM spirits space, I can help you develop strategy to position your brand.

Consulting & Brand Strategy

Come taste regional beverages at the Drink A Seat tasting room located in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Private Tasting Room

Toma Asiento, Drink A Seat

In 2008, while studying Spanish at the Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico in San Germán, a Boricua friend smiled, motioned to an empty chair, and said, “Drink a seat.”

She meant toma asiento—“take a seat”—but the verb tomar can also mean “to drink" or “to take in,” depending on the context.

A small moment stuck with me (te mando saludos, Kat). It’s a little wordplay with a lot of heart—one that always brings me back to the joy of the journey.

In Rio Tuerto, the air is nectarous, incensed with fermenting cane juice. The motor of the trapiche (sugar mill) chugs, and burros clomp down from the hills with bundles of sugar cane festooned to their ribs. This is where Jose Luis Carrera has been distilling aguardiente all his adult life. Carrera also grows coffee. In this region, some of the most sought-after coffee in the republic is grown; the vertiginous landscape surrounding Huautla de Jiménez offers altitude variations favorable for growing specialty coffee. Men unload the cane from the burros, then feed it into the trapiche. Fresh-pressed cane juice is channeled to fermentation tanks for rum, or boiled down separately into panela.

Later, around the Carrera family table, we share a mug of panela-sweetened coffee and take in Jose Luis’s tales of his persistence to keep his art form — his rum — alive at all costs. His tenacity is the inspiration behind the “café de olla” coffee liqueur.

The coffee liqueur had to do more than taste good, it had to showcase 100% Mexican ingredients and support other small growers. Cinnamon is sourced from two regions in Oaxaca; layering different cinnamons into the rum creates a fuller, more complex flavor. Chile huacle, the famous black chile that colors Oaxacan mole negro, is cultivated in the Cuicatlán Valley and is sourced directly from @delchilar, a small-hold farmer. The chile’s deep, roasty flavor is the ideal companion for the coffee. Intrigued by tales of the world’s most special vanilla from the Chinantla, we went to the source. Each bottle of café de olla liqueur contains vanilla from the Akih Vanilla project. @akih.vanilla is a cooperative that has been defending and preserving vanilla biodiversity in the region for more than twenty years, reclaiming it for its original stewards, the Chinantec people.

The Paranubes ‘Café de Olla’ coffee liqueur is so much bigger than the liquid in the bottle.

May you be transported to Oaxaca with each sip. ¡Salud! ☕️✨

#paranubes #cafedeolla #oaxaca

A meal that stayed with me at Casa Dos Piedras in Teotitlán del Valle. After hiking Hierve el Agua, a visit with Diego at the Dos Pasiones palenque, and an adventurous ride to the edges of town, Ana's cooking was as alive as the valley looked. Link in bio. #tragona #drinkaseat #CasaDosPiedras #Teotitlándelvalle

An egg cooked in a heart-shaped hierba santa leaf is my grounding meal. The next installment of Tragona takes you to La Cosecha Organic Market in Oaxaca. Link in Bio #Tragona #drinkaseat

In the world of Latin American spirits, we talk a lot about what went into crafting what's in the glass. But some of the most memorable moments happen around the table. I've spent the last 10 years visiting distilleries in Mexico and Peru, and Tragona is where I write about those — the meals that matched the mezcal, tequila, rum, and pisco, the kitchens that told a story, the bites that made me stop mid-conversation and feel grateful to be exactly where I was. My first post is about a unique tequila pairing experience, tucked away on the back streets of Tequila, Jalisco — @tinybar.speakeasy. Link in Bio

#Tequila #Drinkaseat #Tragona #Tinybar

VIGNETTES OF DRINK A SEAT TASTING:

A tequila tasting complete with steam-cooked blue agave (gracias NOM 1108), mezcal, and vino de coco.

The tequilas showcased a range of flavors from the Tequila Valley and the Highlands of Jalisco, as well as production methods and the distilleries’ stories and cosmovisions. Even small changes in the jima (the harvest), cooking times, oven type, extraction method, yeast strain, and cuts during distillation all contribute to big flavor changes in the final product — much like knobs on a mixing board.

G4 blanco uses two kinds of water to develop and distinguish flavor profiles. Atanasio reposado plays with long fermentation times employing ambient yeast — this particular reposado is labeled “funky,” demonstrating how the distillery celebrates different flavor profiles. Ocho añejo uses single-estate agave and low-intervention aging to ensure the agave stands out above the barrel’s influence. Fuenteseca extra añejo uses single-origin agave and an extensive aging program with some of the oldest aged tequila in the industry — not to mention barrels from all over the world to create exquisite blends. Guests tried the 7-year XA from 2007!

The high proof blancos:

Fortaleza Still Strength, 46% (lot 22-5) —a traditional proof for the Valley, made using tahona, open wood fermentation, and small copper pot stills.

Caballito Cerrero Agave Azul 50% — CC has been making vino mezcal since the 17th century in the Tequila-Amatitán Valley. A tequila tasting without CC would be sacrilege, a beacon for tradition through resistance.

Tosba’s pechuga was the ideal segue to discuss Oaxacan traditions, taste something with massive texture and big flavor from here in Oaxaca — and fittingly this tasting was for a bride and groom and her parents.

The final taste: Pal Mar vino de coco is distilled tuba (fermented sap from the coconut palm) made in Colima. During the 17th century, Filipino migrants set up a thriving vino de coco production along the west central coast of Mexico— which became the likely precursor to vino mezcal, tequila, and mezcal as we know it.

DM TO SET UP A TASTING OF AGAVE SPIRITS, PISCO, RUM & MORE 🥂✨

Paranubes “Café de Olla”: Oaxacan coffee, cinnamon, and panela meet ron blanco in a spiced liqueur rooted in tradition. Read more— Link in Bio #CafedeOlla #Oaxaca #CoffeeLiqueur #placebaseddrinks

Distillation Diaries: “False Agave”

In Cocachimba, home to Gocta Lab, the cabuya or penca, Furcraea andina, grows in abundance. With our prototype still built and functioning, it was time to put local ingredients to the test. I wanted to explore the possibility of distilling penca, drawing on the same processes I have observed for years in agave spirits and even whisky production.

Could we develop a spirit made with local ingredients that reflects Pirqapata Lab’s commitment to 0 km sourcing? Could we create a product truly representative of the region and ease dependence on the inherent fickleness of tourism?

Link in bio.

#DistillationDiaries #FalseAgave #Spirits #CraftDistilling #DrinkASeat

Distillation Diaries: Project Destilador

“Leading up to the start of the residency, I resisted the urge to pre-plan what I would make; instead, I wanted to listen, learn, and observe with my feet on the ground and allow myself to become inspired sensorially.

It was not until I arrived, got my bearings, and took a long thought filled walk to the gorgeous Gocta waterfall, a four to five hour round trip spent traipsing past trapiches for the local production of sugarcane based panela, guarapo, and cañazo, that the mission presented itself to me, to distill hyper local ingredients using a distiller built from local pottery”

Read more at drinkaseat.com ✨
#Huancas #Gocta #Amazonas #Peru

Distillation Diaries: Yacon

“While in the end we did not achieve a refined product from the 4-liter capacity clay pot still, that was not necessarily the goal. The main takeaway was to understand how to process the yacon with the materials we had on hand, opening up a dialogue between us, the agricultural products, and their potential to become viable spirits, while establishing initial production methods for their transformation.”

Read more on drinkaseat.com link in bio ✨
#yacon #Amazonas #Peru @pirqapatalab @goctalab

Yacon: Smallanthus sonchifolius

Yacon is an ancient tuber endemic to the Andes, part of the sunflower family and a relative of chicory, sunchokes, and dahlias. Could it be the ideal hyper-local ingredient for distillation in Peru’s Amazonas region? Could it generate meaningful financial opportunity for rural communities and offer some relief from reliance on a fickle tourism industry, while centering an ancient ingredient that, across generations, has quietly slipped from regional diets?

As foreign wellness markets like Japan and Australia “discover” its health benefits, they are poised to propel this Andean crop into the international spotlight as the next health craze.

Fresh, yacon is delicate to store and transport, distillation offers a method of preservation. We can transform it into a refined, hyper-local product that honors its origins while creating new pathways for its future avoiding its fade out and its dispossession.

Read more about the work I carried out @pirqapatalab and why I think yacon has real potential to be molded into a spirit at the link in bio.

#yacon #Amazonas #Peru #inulin #playwithyourfood

The juicy AF pitahaya churuja, endemic to Amazonas, Peru.

@goctalab @pirqapatalab
#pitahaya #beveragecreation #GoctaLab Link in Bio

Tequila’s most underrepresented voices are speaking up loud and clear. It’s curious how you won’t see it in mainstream media - or is it?

Repost from @mezcalistas
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Our happy Mezcal Monday story is actually a story about tequila. It could have huge reverberations not only for tequila, but also for all agave spirits.

Last week, agaveros gathered in Tequila to protest alleged dirty deals, abusive tactics, and serious corruption in the tequila industry. These are not new allegations as the Mexican Agave Council had previously asked the Mexican government to look into the problems the farmers were seeing but these are by far and away the most public accusations and protests in years.

While the plummeting price of agave, which is now running about 1-2 pesos per kilo, is a primary concern for the farmers, they also allege other practices like increasing adulteration of product they feel are endangering the very integrity of the spirit itself. Contributor Felisa Rogers was on the ground and had a chance to speak with leaders of the council and farmers. She also provides great background and context for how this moment arrived.

Link in bio to featured story or here: https://www.mezcalistas.com/tequila-industry-corruption/

Pictured above:
➡ Agaveros marching in Tequila
➡ Julián Rodríguez Parra, president of the Mexican Agave Council, addressing the crowd.

#tequila #agaveros #adulteration #tequilaprotest #mezcalmonday

New post!

The Arc of Acre; When a Restaurant Opening and a Global Pandemic Collide

“I was opening a restaurant in NYC during the onset of the global pandemic. Cultivation of community through food, beverage, and design was central to the conception of Acre and I was tasked with doing so through beverage as the bar consultant.”

KaliNOtxo
2 oz Verjus
2 oz house made cola syrup with reishi
1/2 oz fresh orange juice
Mineral water

“The drink recipes I was developing for Acre were stopped in their tracks when Governor Cuomo announced that all indoor dining would be prohibited on March 16th, 2020… After the dust settled from the initial chaos of the pandemic, they [the recipes] were frozen in time just as I had left them -unfinished and untested. I made each recipe, photographed them, and published them for this class project, and it felt like closure.”

#drinkaseat #nyufoodstudies

Agave hearts with a jima larga at the Vivanco distillery!

Long before an agave sees an oven, a master distiller has decided on the length of the jima, one of many ways to create different profiles in a final product.

During harvest, by leaving the pencas longer more sugar and more flavor is coaxed from each piña. This may require tweaks in cooking, milling, fermentation, distillation, barrel aging, and/or proofing as it’s converted into tequila. But the work of the master distiller is precisely this - determining a recipe. And if you’re @chechohugo, you’re doing it without additives and many different ways because you’re creative AF.

Jima matters! #drinkaseat

Check out my blog post about Peru's pisco grapes!
#criollagrapes #patrimonialgrapes #southamerica #peru #pisco #drinkaseat

A new blog post about Pisco & Mezcal, a tale of 2 D.O.s. Comparing and contrasting two spirit categories adds dimension to our understanding of them.
#newblogpost #pisco #mezcal #peru #mexico #drinkaseat

📍Sierra Mazateca, Oaxaca, Mexico

One of the eight regions of Oaxaca, the Sierra Mazateca is a cloud forest, verdant with a palpable aire of mysticism.

Towns and settlements are nestled in the nooks that the many layered mountains allow, most constructed vertically working with the given steep topography.

In a valley far below lies the tiny settlement of Rio Tuerto and the home of José Luis Carreño and his family. Long time trapichero (aguardiente producer) and dedicated campesino, José Luis has been able to lure his family back from the city with work on the family business and provide more work for villagers.

@paranubes
#ESPARANUBES #rumundisturbed #oaxacanrum #aguardiente #caña #oaxaca #mejorparanubes

Repost from @experienceagave
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@experienceagave founder Clayton Szczech’s long-awaited first book, A FIELD GUIDE TO TEQUILA, will be published by @artisan_books on October 17, and we encourage you preorder it today. You can do so from @bookshop_org, @powellsbooks, @amazonbooks, @barnesandnoble, or your favorite independent bookstore. See the link in bio for more details, including what @emmajanzen and @jeffmorgen have to say about it.

#tequila #afieldguide #tequilabook

The active fizz of the mosto (grape must) made from Negra Criolla grapes 🫧 at Jorge Estremedoyro’s bodega in the Majes Valley. He makes wines and piscos from #criolla grape varieties that ferment in tinajas, old school clay pots 🏺

#pisco #Arequipa #majes #Peru #naturalwine #mosto #tinajas

“The Essential Tequila & Mezcal Companion,” has been released! These complex spirits deserve a closer look through multiple lenses, and books (vs social media) on the subject have far more ability to capture those complexities and nuances - let’s read more books!! Congratulations @tessrose211‼️

Repost from @tessrose211
•
My new book, The Essential Tequila & Mezcal Companion, is here. Big thanks to everyone who made it possible. It includes over 300 bottle reviews with producer profiles, a 30+ cocktail section with contributions from top mixologists, a hefty introduction with in depth information, and tips on how to select, collect, and pair your favorite agave spirits. Available now on Amazon and other book retailers. Salud!!

Experimentos en Destilería Andina ✨

Experiments in @destileriaandina ✨

📸: @liz_devine
#cañazo #distillery #Cusco #peru

La Capilla, the legendary Cantina in Tequila, Jalisco.
Home of the Batanga🔪

Line em up!
@el_tequileno @experienceagave #batangas #tequila #lacapilla #jalisco #mexico

Cañazo de Valle Majes, Arequipa, lo de Don Fernando.

Cañazo is a sugar cane distillate from Peru, from the juice of the cane. In the Majes Valley, the distillation and fermentation are of particular interest - aside from the volcanic soil that the cane is nurtured in.

The Huaynaputina volcano, located in Arequipa, was one of the largest eruptions in human history. It occurred in 1600 and ash still blankets the area.

Fermentation occurs in clay amphoras buried in the ground to their shoulder, originally installed for wine and pisco production in the 16th century.

Distillation occurs with a proprietary hybrid still from the zone consisting of a pot still with 2 sets of rectifying plates + a separate condenser. The Cañazo is single distilled and comes off at 55%!

So so so so good! #cañazo #arequipa #aguardientedecaña #Peru #majesvalley #donfernando
@diegojalsovec @piscomundo

👁 @elhilopodcast
•
Coca y cocaína, ¿la misma cosa?

datos esenciales para distinguirlas:

🔺El catedrático Wade Davis, autor del ensayo “Sobre la coca y la cocaína” señala que la planta de coca (con sus diferentes especies) ha sido un componente esencial de prácticamente todas las civilizaciones precolombinas del mundo andino y de la cultura de América del Sur durante miles de años: incas, nazcas, mochicas, muiscas, taironas…

La coca crece entre los 400 y mil 800 metros sobre el nivel del mar y su producción mundial se concentra en los Andes: Bolivia, Perú y Colombia. Es una planta resistente, capaz de sobrevivir en temporada de secas y en tierras de pobres nutrientes.

Su estigma ha devenido por ser la planta origen de la cocaína.

🔺La cocaína, alcaloide de la planta de la coca, fue aislada en 1859 por el químico alemán Albert Niemann. Fue comercializada como medicamento en Estados Unidos en 1882 e incluso recomendada por Freud a través de su trabajo Über Coca ("Sobre la coca"), en el que afirmaba que era un medicamento antidepresivo, digestivo y que optimizaba el rendimiento físico e intelectual. Después abandonaría su defensa.

El periodista J. A. Aunión señaló en un reportaje para El País: “A partir de los años veinte llegó el final de la época dorada del comercio legal de cocaína. Varias razones confluyeron para causar el declive, sobre todo, restricciones internacionales que acabaron en prohibición con las conferencias internacionales del opio”.

🔴El mercado de la ilegalidad sigue activo hasta nuestros días. En su Informe Mundial sobre Drogas de 2022, la Oficina de Naciones Unidas para la Droga y el Delito estima que 21,5 millones de personas consumieron cocaína en 2020. En Colombia se registraron 143 mil hectáreas de coca en el 2020, lo que equivale a una disminución del 7% frente al año anterior. Pese a esto, la fabricación potencial de cocaína aumentó el 8% llegando a 1.228 toneladas.

🔴Catalina Gil Pinzón, de la Open Society Foundations, señala:
“Hagamos lo que hagamos, la demanda por consumir drogas es muy poderosa. Buscar un libre mundo de drogas es una meta ilusoria”.

#elhilopodcast #colombia🇨🇴 #coca #drogas #guerracontralasdrogas

Distilling in the Andes, slow and low, at @apuwinery.

#mosto #fruta #passionfruit #granadilla #distilling #Curahuasi #Apurimac #Peru #slowandlow

Mujer power 🫶🏼 from @zinacantan.mezcal
•
YES, we do small batches
YES, we developed an ecological model for the reintroduction of agaves and the conservation of the magueyero bat.
YES, we talk face to face. Nobody from the government has given us a single peso and we are not interested in politics.
YES, we have worked for more than 8 years to demonstrate that a responsible project can guarantee the biodiversity of the ecosystems associated with AGAVE and the tradition of peasant Mezcal.
YES we talk about the dark side of mezcal head-on and without filters.
YES, we are campesino and artisan Mezcal 100% AGAVE.
YES, we are two women growing this project.
——

SI, hacemos lotes pequeños
SI, Nosotras desarrollamos un modelo ecológico para reintroducción de agaves y conservación del murciélago magueyero.
SI, Nosotras hablamos de frente. Nadie del gobierno nos ha dado un solo peso y no nos interesa la política.
SI, hemos trabajado por más de 8 años para demostrar que un proyecto responsable puede garantizar la biodiversidad de los ecosistemas asociados al AGAVE y la tradición del Mezcal campesino.
SI hablamos de frente y sin filtros sobre el lado oscuro del mezcal.
SI, Somos Mezcal campesino y artesanal 100% AGAVE.
SI, somos dos mujeres creciendo éste proyecto.

#craftdistillers #mezcal #agavelove #agavespirits #womanpower #distilling #agaveholic #spirits #tequila #bourbon #whiskey #agave #mezcalera #bat #smallbatch #craftdistillers #craftdistillery #cognac

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@drinkaseat

Drink A Seat is a journey through Latin America’s spirits and stories, crafted from over twenty years behind the bar, in the distillery, and one long winding road.

​From the bar to the distillery to the winding roads of Latin America, Drink A Seat is built on two decades of hands-on experience and boundless curiosity.

Toma Asiento, Drink A Seat

​

Follow us on Instagram

From the bar to the distillery to the winding roads of Latin America, Drink A Seat is built on two decades of hands-on experience and boundless curiosity.