LOCAL FINDS: MEXICO CITY
The markets, the vendors, and the hyper-local ingredients fuelling Mexico City's cocktail revolution
The best drinks in Mexico City start with a local find.
Every Saturday morning, before the bar opens, a handful of Mexico City's best bartenders can be found doing the same thing: walking the aisles of Mercado de San Juan. They're not shopping for groceries — they're scouting.
This is where the city's cocktail revolution begins. Not behind the bar, but at a market stall, haggling over a kilo of chapulines or tasting a new batch of tejocote from a vendor in Oaxaca. The best drinks in Mexico City start with a local find.
At Licorería Limantour — consistently ranked among the world's best bars — the back bar reads like a map of the country. Hoja santa from Veracruz for infusions. Tamarind from Guerrero for syrups. Chilli salt from a family farm in Puebla. Every ingredient tells a story about place.
Patron Silver has become the canvas these bartenders reach for when they want the ingredient to shine. Its clean, additive-free agave profile doesn't compete — it collaborates. As one bartender puts it: 'When the spirit is honest, the cocktail is honest.'
