Pepe Orts
Botanical Mixologist
Trainer, consultant and promoter of events related to the cocktail and bar world. Passionate about the botanical world, related to the cocktail sector.
Profile
I am a botanical mixologist. This is how I like to be referred to and recognised. Although my relationship with mixology is relatively recent, I have a family connectionwith the plant world and since I’ve started in the world of cocktails, botanicals, citrus fruits, vegetable condiments, plants, flowers and fruits, have been and will be part of my way of understanding mixology.
"I'm like a chef who can't cook without spices. I can't conceive any cocktail without some botanical improvements".
News
I currently combine my work as a trainer, persuader and promoter of events related to the cocktail and the bar. I am also a consultant for companies that want to add quality drinks to their range, and this requires me to do some creative work, which is what I enjoy the most. Developing a drink from scratch, with a clear mind and with my ideas open to every possibility excites me.
Finally, over the years, I have further developed my career as a consultant and nowadays what occupies my work day is training companies and entrepreneurs and helping them to develop profitable projects in the world of the bar. Believe it or not, many entrepreneurs do not know whether they are making or losing money from their bars, nor do they know the amounts of both profits and losses. Analysis and consultancy are essential in such cases.
And finally, I am currently designing a set of online courses that I hope will be ready during 2021.
The cocktail industry
I will differentiate it in two parts:
BEFORE COVID : the cocktail bar is the orphan child of a revolution and is too connected to its origins and other golden ages.
There is too much regression towards the classics, too many proposals based on Speakeasys, on vintage aesthetics and too much dependence on 20th century cocktails, and on the autocracy of big brands.
If you are not a cocktail maker working in Madrid or Barcelona, and you don’t serve large numbers, you are practically a nobody, which is unfair, as there is a lot of brilliant work in many places unknown to the general public.
We forget that the new century will demand new formulas for more and more demanding customers with more and more cocktail culture. Today the demand is for culture, health, gastronomy and spectacle in a glass.
In my opinion, a worldwide revolution is pending in the world of the bar, similar to the one that took place in the 90’s in the kitchen with Ferran Adrià.
It is true that it is impossible to replicate a Ferran Adrià, but sooner or later a similar genius will emerge in the cocktail world to turn us all upside down.
The good news is that in Spain there are many first class mixologists and I believe that, as we did in the kitchen, in cocktails we will also lead the avant-garde in the world. And I, in particular, would love to be there to enjoy that moment.
POST COVID: Despite the destruction that covid has caused the industry (not only in the loss of many establishments and professional careers, but above all the hope of many to continue in the industry being stigmatised for no reason), I see a time filled with many opportunities as soon as the current pandemic allows us to work at 100%.
It is true that this industry will have to recover from a lot of damage, but for that reason, anyone who has something to say will have plenty of opportunities to do so. Now is the time to work hard to get new projects off the ground because I am sure that the public and customers will react very well in 3 / 4 years’ time.
Of course, you have to be creative, original and move with the times. If you want I’ll give you a hint: healthy, non-alcoholic and low alcohol cocktails. That’s the way things are going to go.
Teichenné
I got to discovered Teichenné at the many cocktail events we have attended all over Spain and Europe. I always found their product range to be very cohesive and of a high standard. From the moment I met Level Gin I loved it as its an authentic gin, and when I discovered its “Reserve” version, I became aware of how a distillate can evolve without losing its essence, to unexpected levels. Then I fell in love with the rest of their products as soon as I started working with them: L’Arbre Gin, Kinross, Olave, Tabú and their Ultra Premium liqueurs. I love working with such high quality products. Today they are a reference in every premises I work at as a consultant and the entrepreneurs I advise are delighted with the quality and efficiency of these distillates and liqueurs.
It is a very family-oriented company and I am proud to belong to the “family”.
Pepe Orts' recipes
