I am a first generation Cuban American. I grew up in Miami, Florida traveling to the Caribbean as a child, and I have a taste for amazing food and drinks that started from a young age. I became a pastry chef at 19 while living in Manhattan. A few years later as I was making house made syrups and garnishes for the bar team at the slanted door I decided to take my talents to the front of the house. My first bartending gig was in San Francisco at a dive…. that just happened to be a rum and punch bar. Lucky me! I have traveled around the world looking for inspiration, learning and absorbing everything to do with hospitality, the craft of bar tending and of course the culinary arts. I got the tropical itch living on Maui. Since then I have dedicated my time to understanding and appreciating rum and its influence on modern society. I also love the Grateful Dead but do not like the band Phish.

That’s easy! Explaining to an average of 5000 people I see a week working behind the bar at Three Dots in a Dash that they don’t have to drink vodka! I haven’t distilled my own rum, or created a new classic cocktail, but I have fought tooth and nail, night after night to convince, educate and open the minds of 10’s of 1000’s of people that there is more to rum than they ever thought. I have showed so many unknowing guests that rum is a complex and beautiful sprit. I’ve made many a new rum lovers for the world and what an accomplished feeling it brings me. I am so happy I get to show case what I love most, rum, Rhum, Ron, and of course Cacha.

In Saint Croix in 2007. I was on an extended trip to the island. I drank rum before but not to that extent. There was something about the people on Saint Croix and the honor they had for Crusian rum. It’s their baby, it’s their pride and joy. I felt the love of the community, I felt the presence of the rum in day to day life and I saw the impact Crusian had on the island’s local economy.

I sat on the beach with a bottle of Crusian black strap, a can of pineapple juice and some crappie ice from the hotel lobby. I stared out at the aqua waves crashing into the shore. I drank the bottle till the moon rose, the water turned silver and I thought to myself, “this is rum, this is how rum makes you feel, it’s not like any other spirit. These people here on Saint Croix they know what’s up”

I’ve truly had a love affair ever since. Rum has changed my life. It has taken me places I could’ve never imagined and brought me friends I will forever cherish.

I see rum right now having a revival! Rum is back baby and I’m going to pour you some. In the next five years I see or I would like to see a tighter set of guidelines and more transparency from distillers. I want to know what’s really in that bottle, where it comes from, and how long it’s been aged. I think that as rum becomes more and more popular over the next five years the consumers are going to want to know more as well. I am really excited to see a kind of rum standard developed and put into place.

Curt Corillo, he worked with me, trained me and helped me refine my skills. He gave me pride in my job and the chops needed to now feel worthy or calling myself an actual bartender.

Micheala Piccolo, who hired me at Sweet Liberty. An amazing woman that showed me that working at a bar could be more than just a job, that rum could be a career, and that you could be a powerful woman in a very masculine industry.

Jessica Evertt, my friend and business partner, who could be the hardest working woman I know. She has amazed me with her work ethic from day one. I can only hope to be as hard a worker as she is. Always fun, always professional, and the first person to train me behind the bar. I love you Jess!

See my first project as acting bar manager Pony-Up in Denver become a success.