Meet the Eight Bartenders Featured in the Mi Campo Live Louder Showcase

The Mi Campo Live Louder Showcase began with a straightforward prompt: build an original cocktail around Mi Campo Tequila, shoot a video at your bar and tell us about it.

Dozens of submissions arrived from bartenders across New York State, each one a window into a different bar, a different story and a different interpretation of what it means to Live Louder. The editorial panel — drawn from spirits media, the bar industry and Mi Campo — evaluated each entry across six dimensions: Mi Campo integration, creativity and concept, visual presentation, storytelling, bartender personality and the culture and atmosphere of the bar they represent.

The judging panel has now narrowed it down to the top eight entries. Their cocktails draw from pupusas and horchata, from Turkish pickled turnips, from Colombian childhood memories, from mariachi and Mexican heritage, from the idea of a gentian aperitif turned tequila cocktail. All of them have a story.

In October, the winner will be showcased live at Arte Agave NYC.

Meet the finalists! For each, you’ll see their name and the bar they work at. Then, you’ll learn about their cocktail and the person behind it.

Lena Bicakci — Champagne Problems

Cocktail: Madame Campo

Key Ingredients: Mi Campo Blanco, Bols Banana Liqueur, Choya, rosemary-pepper pickle juice, Turkish pickled turnips

Presentation: Pink cocktail served in a chilled martini glass, garnished with dehydrated pickled turnip and sweet banana peppers

Lena came to New York from Turkey as an au pair and worked her way from coat check into service and eventually behind the bar. Madame Campo is rooted in that journey — it incorporates her Turkish heritage through rosemary-pepper pickle juice and pickled turnips, ingredients that feel personal rather than pantry-convenient. For Lena, Living Louder means embracing what makes you different and having the confidence to stand out.

Champagne Problems is a playful, multi-level Bowery nightlife destination with a highly visual approach to cocktails and a taste for the unexpected — a fitting home for a pink martini built on Turkish pickle brine.

Octavio Medina — Ruta Oaxaca

Cocktail: Herencia Mexicana

Key Ingredients: Mi Campo Blanco, house-made nopal purée, lime, agave, St-Germain, Pasilla liqueur, dragon fruit-Pasilla foam

Presentation: Vibrant green cocktail served over ice with a salted rim, topped with dragon fruit-Pasilla foam and finished with a tamal garnish

Herencia Mexicana — Mexican Heritage — says exactly what it is. Octavio and the Ruta Oaxaca team built the drink around authentically Mexican ingredients: nopal, agave, Pasilla chile. The house-made nopal purée gives the cocktail its distinctive green color; the dragon fruit-Pasilla foam adds a visual and textural layer on top; the tamal garnish makes the statement complete. For Octavio, Living Louder is waking up every day and doing what he loves, and building relationships with people from around the world through the work.

Ruta Oaxaca in Astoria celebrates Oaxacan food, flavors, and traditions alongside a serious agave program.

Carlos Flores — Diamond Dogs

Cocktail: El Guanaco

Key Ingredients: Quesillo-washed Mi Campo Reposado, carrot liqueur, corn-tea agave, lime, masa-horchata foam

Presentation: Served over ice in a rocks glass, topped with masa-horchata foam, finished with a hand-crafted wooden tropical bird stirrer and coaster

El Guanaco is a love letter to Carlos’s Salvadoran heritage, built around the flavors and textures of pupusas and horchata translated into the architecture of a tequila cocktail. Quesillo-washed Mi Campo Reposado is the foundation — a technique that layers richness and depth before the corn, carrot, lime and masa-horchata foam add their influence. Each ingredient references something Carlos grew up eating. Living Louder, for him, means being proudly and authentically yourself.

Diamond Dogs is an Astoria neighborhood bar that takes cocktails seriously without taking itself too seriously — an approachable, community-driven spot with a strong local following.

Alejandro Berrio — The Tiger Club

Cocktail: Passionate Dance

Key Ingredients: Mi Campo Blanco, passion fruit purée, oat milk, agave, lime, Hellfire Bitters

Presentation: Rocks glass with Kold-Draft ice and a Tajín rim

Passionate Dance begins with a childhood memory: passion fruit juice with milk, a drink Alejandro grew up with in Colombia. The cocktail reimagines that memory through Mi Campo Blanco, with oat milk softening the tropical fruit and Hellfire Bitters cutting through with heat. The Tajín rim bridges the Colombian influence with the Mexican spirit at the center of the drink. For Alejandro, Living Louder is about bringing his roots, tastes, and memories into everything he creates.

Alejandro represents the newly opened Tiger Club in Hell’s Kitchen.

Paige Sinon — Palladino’s

Cocktail: The Orchard / El Huerto

Key Ingredients: Mi Campo Reposado, Crème de Violette, white peach nectar, lemon, basil syrup

Presentation: Coupe with a dehydrated lemon-zest rim; a frozen peach flower sits at the bottom of the glass and rises to the surface as the cocktail warms — a “reverse garnish”

Paige wanted to push past the citrus-and-salt expectations that tend to follow tequila and highlight what Mi Campo Reposado can do in a more delicate register: floral notes, light citrus, barrel influence. The Orchard / El Huerto delivers that through Crème de Violette, white peach nectar, and basil syrup, with a presentation built around surprise. The frozen peach flower that slowly rises from the bottom of the glass is a flourish, but it’s also a statement: cocktails can be fun. Living Louder, for Paige, means not holding back creatively.

Palladino’s sits inside Grand Central Terminal overlooking the Main Concourse.

Ben Abel — seeyamañana

Cocktail: My Big Fat Mexican Wedding

Key Ingredients: Mi Campo Blanco, Greek yogurt, chamoy, mango

Presentation: Coupe

Ben’s cocktail is rooted in a specific kind of joy — the kind you find eating chamoyadas on a street in Mexico City, surrounded by people, noise and flavor you weren’t expecting. My Big Fat Mexican Wedding translates that experience into a glass: the tang of Greek yogurt, the sweet heat of chamoy and the brightness of mango built around Mi Campo Blanco. For Ben, Living Louder means having a good time and letting other cultures in.

Javier Reyes — Albert’s Bar/Cosme

Cocktail: Bloom Theory

Key Ingredients: Mi Campo Reposado, lime, Wölffer verjus, jasmine honey, Green Chartreuse, jasmine tincture

Presentation: Shaken and strained into a coupe, finished with an apple-slice fan on a pick

When developing Bloom Theory, Javier wanted to revisit one of his favorite tequila cocktails and approach it with delicacy, letting Mi Campo Reposado lead while the jasmine honey, verjus, and Green Chartreuse add complexity without competing. His interpretation of Living Louder is quieter than the name suggests: creating small interactions — a joke, a conversation, a well-made drink — that stay with people and may eventually inspire someone else.

Meg Farrell — Famous Last Words

Cocktail: Dear Friend

Key Ingredients: Mi Campo Reposado, Salers Gentian Aperitif, Giffard Pamplemousse, lime, basil simple syrup, orange bitters, Cocchi Extra Dry vermouth rinse

Recipe: 1.5 oz Mi Campo Reposado, 0.75 oz Salers, 0.25 oz Giffard Pamplemousse, 0.25 oz lime, 0.25 oz basil simple, orange bitters, barspoon Cocchi Dry rinse

Presentation: Coupe, finished with a slapped basil leaf

Dear Friend began with a question: what would a gentian aperitif look like if it were a complete tequila cocktail? Meg used Salers as the structural backbone alongside Mi Campo Reposado, with Giffard Pamplemousse and basil syrup providing citrus and herbal lift, and the Cocchi Extra Dry rinse adding a dry, delicate frame. It’s a drink with a lot going on that somehow feels like it’s saying less — which tracks with the bar it comes from.

Famous Last Words on Fulton Street in Brooklyn is, by Meg’s own description, a community bar. That neighborhood identity — unpretentious, connected, invested in the people who walk in — is central to her interpretation of Living Louder: being as involved in your community as you can be.

Eight bartenders. Eight cocktails. One winner.

The Mi Campo Live Louder competition culminates with the finalists going head-to-head in New York before one bartender is crowned the winner. That winning cocktail and bartender will then be featured at Arte Agave NYC on October 1-2, bringing the Live Louder competition to one of the country’s premier celebrations of agave spirits.