Tania López Fernández, winner of the fifth edition
The Master Cocktail winner has an outstanding career as an entrepreneur in the hospitality sector, where she has shown great experience and creativity as a bartender.
This young Asturian is co-founder of three successful venues, including “The Black”, “La Loca del Moño” and “El Patio de Butacas”. With the latter, she began her meteoric career, pouring all her interests, research and love into it with her partner Alberto Díaz Noval. “Here we focus on cocktails inspired by the rural world, with roots, tradition and attachment to what’s ours,” Tania López tells us. In fact, she started out working at the bar owned by the man who would become her partner, “to earn a bit of money”. It was there that Tania entered the world of cocktails, first mastering the classics and later creating emblematic menus such as “Madre” and the current “Melecina”, “keeping the common thread of using local produce from our gardens and lanes”. She began working with Jerez wines unexpectedly, on a holiday to Sanlúcar de Barrameda. On that trip she soaked up the whole history of the wine region and began to study and learn about wines, production processes, vintages and grape varieties, until she fell head over heels for the bodegas and their products.
“The Black Bar” is another of her venues, a cocktail bar inspired by English clubs and pubs, with lighter, more playful cocktails. And “La Loca del Moño” is what Tania calls “her toy”, an unpretentious bar with a big following in the most emblematic building in Pola de Siero.
We share Tania López’s experience during her visit to Bodegas Williams & Humbert, where we got to know her better and enjoy her winning cocktail, “Sur Fashioned”, a Rum Fashioned based on Oloroso-poached pears – pears picked from the Master Cocktail winner’s own garden.
Sur Fashioned
When cooked, transfer the pears to a vacuum bag and add pectinase at 2% of their weight. Leave for 24 hours at room temperature.
Reduce the Don Zoilo Oloroso left in the pan over a high heat until you have a bitter caramel with Oloroso aromas and a sweet flavour.
The next day, strain the liquid released by the pears. To make the cocktail, add to a mixing glass a bar spoon of the Oloroso syrup, 35 ml of the Oloroso pears and 100 ml of Dos Maderas 5+5 rum. Stir for 6–8 minutes, adding ice for dilution.
Serve in an Old Fashioned glass with ice and garnish with an orange twist.
Organised by Bodegas Williams & Humbert, Master Cocktail is the cocktail competition launched in 2019 for industry professionals. A platform to boost the creativity, talent, technique and work of bartenders, with great brands such as Cubical gin, Dos Maderas rum and Gran Duque de Alba brandy. Making a cocktail with one of these Williams & Humbert brands is one of the requirements to enter. All the information about entering Master Cocktail and the prizes available to the winners can be found at mastercocktail.es