In Person of Interest we talk to the people catching our eye right now about what they’re doing, eating, reading, and loving. Next up is Denisse Soto, a Chicago mixologist highlighting Mexican flavors and traditions through inventive cocktails.
Denisse Soto’s cocktails taste like her memory of green chorizo blowing in the breeze. Or an homage to her mother in the form of cochinita pibil, a Mayan pork dish synonymous with the Yucatán peninsula. Maybe you’ll try Soto’s take on her father’s favorite meal, a green pozole from Guerrero. With a childhood marked by travel thanks to her mother’s profession as a flight attendant and family roots throughout Mexico—Morelos, Tlaxcala, Chiapas, Guerrero, and Mexico state—Soto has made it her mission to share Mexican culture with as many people as possible, one cocktail at a time.
The 37-year-old entrepreneur is the founder of Denisse Soto With Flair, a creative cocktail consultancy in which Mexican ingredients are at the forefront. She has a variety of clients but her talent and expertise are on full display at Cariño in Chicago, co-owned by chef Norman Fenton, formerly of Michelin-starred Schwa, and Karen Young. There she drills into Mexican flavors, highlighting the greater diaspora in Latin America.
Over the last three years, following the deaths of her parents, Soto has been taking greater risks—creating imaginative cocktails, sourcing hard-to-find spirits, and building bar programs that are turning into travel destinations.
Soto spoke to Bon Appétit about what’s driving her diverse brand, why she chose mixology to tell stories, and the role her family plays in her work. Soto also pulls back the curtain on five bottles of Mexican spirits she loves.
When my mom passed, I made a cochinita pibil cocktail. It’s a dish synonymous with the Yucatán, where she’s from. I’m really focused on combining gastronomy with cocktails and taking greater risks to create cocktails that are tasty. I adapted the sauce by omitting the garlic and onion and bringing in piloncillo to sweeten a tamarind water for a vinegar shrub. Chef Norman Fenton of Cariño tried it and said adding salt would make it go all the way cochinita. I didn’t want to go too adventurous because I’m always thinking about the customers, but I figured “If you’re [here], you’re already adventurous.” We added a salt rim of flour chicharron, dried habanero, dried red onion, lime, and salt. A round ice ball with marigold flowers frozen inside, sits in the liquid that’s topped off with a banana leaf for a sweet and sour barbecue flavor.
I loved making cocktails, but it was a hobby for years before I made it my full-time job. I’d arrive at parties and friends knew that drinks were my signature item. I loved seeing people light up trying my creations. In Mexico there’s the belief “a professional career” is defined as a doctor, accountant, or professor—something you go to school for and receive your degree in. My mom had been a dentist, my dad was an engineer, so in 2015 when I told them I wanted to do this, it didn’t make sense to them. I was a woman not only trying to break into a male-dominated industry, I was looking to lead it. They believed no one would respect me and they worried about how others might perceive me as a drunkard. From where I come from, mixology wasn’t something people thought of as a viable career.
That was 10 years ago when I committed to this work. To prove to my family I was serious about it, I started getting certified to become an expert, and one of the first I received was on tequila. What you’re really learning during those programs is how to identify a high-quality product, and that all spirits and cocktails have history and culture. That realization inspired awe and respect—I stopped looking at mixology as just a hobby.
When my mom passed away three months ago, I wanted to leave Chicago and this work behind. Then I remembered how much I’ve sacrificed—long preps, long nights, when I would wonder whether any of this would work out. I even flirted with my old job as a dental assistant, when the pandemic forced the closure of bars and I had to make ends meet. My mom came around to support me. She saw how happy it made me and how I kept learning and growing. She was the first person who tried my drinks—before any clients or friends. The love I had for this career, she absorbed and adopted it as her own.
One of the last things that my mom told me was that she wanted to write a book called from Chiapas to Chicago. She told me she was very happy with her life, and she was very confident in how she had lived it. She had done everything she wanted—she listed her several careers ranging from accountant to dentist to flight attendant; her travels, her marriage, her kids and grandchild. I want to feel the same way. When you are building your own story, you are already living your dreams.
My mother told me her parents had a restaurant and ice cream shop. I always thought my interests in gastronomy and hospitality made me an outlier in my family. I create based on how I remember something and how I hope it tastes. I attribute my abilities to ancestral knowledge. Somehow it works without me having had formal training, like some kind of inheritance.
Bacanora is a mezcal made from the agave pacifica plant, featuring a less smoky finish than the more commonly sold mezcal made from blue Weber agave. Soto’s preference is to serve Aguamiel Bacanora to customers as a sipping drink rather than mixed. Soto appreciates the earthy notes, mesquite aromas, and lingering anise.
Comiteco is not easy to find in the US or even in Mexico. Native to the Southern state of Chiapas, comiteco is an aguamiel, made through a similar process as tequila and mezcal, but with the fermented sap of agave instead of the plant’s cooked heart. Its subtle flavors are suitable for cocktails, as in Soto’s interpretation of tascalate, an ancient Mayan drink of achiote spice, maize, water, and cacao (also indigenous to Chiapas). Her preferred brand is 9 Guardianes, stocked behind Cariño’s bar.
Mezcal undergirds Soto’s pozole verde cocktail, To Greener Days, an homage to her late father’s favorite dish from Guerrero. The herbal, mineral Madre Mezcal anchors Soto’s house-made habanero bitters, grilled tomatillos and pineapple, fresh oregano, and lime juice, a savory-meets-crisp riff on the beloved Mexican stew.
Rum, specifically Ron Libertad—distilled in the highlands of Chiapas in partnership with eight local families—honors the heritage of the local indigenous population. The rum is made from a variety of sugar plants native to the area, and is the base of Soto’s cochinita pibil cocktail, inspired by the Yucatán dish synonymous with the Mayans—and the birthplace of her mother.
Sotol from Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Durango can’t be beat, says Soto, but her favorite is Sotomayor Sotol, made from desert spoon and certified by Mexico’s Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources, which is charged with the protection of the country’s natural resources, as adhering to environmental regulations and sustainability standards. The plant is cooked in stone ovens using mesquite and volcanic rock and fermented in oak wood. Inspired by shaved ice vendors and named after the trendy Mexico City neighborhood, the La Condesa features hibiscus, chile ancho, and chocolate.