2023-10-31 08:25:00
Maru Avila at home, experimenting… until something new emerges.
How the idea arises to create a new drink or cocktail when it seems like everything has already been invented.
What is the creative process of a bartender with an alchemist soul, such as Mariela Ávila from Bariloche, who has emerged as one of the most powerful and hierarchical drinks professionals in Patagonia following 11 years of exhausting most of the bars in the region and far beyond, even.
Among so many thousands of jars, pipettes, distillers and books in her beautiful and particular house, Maru, as she is known and called in the mountain range, shares the DNA of her passion. Entering here makes all the senses explode… how can something wonderful not come from here.
This home looks like something out of a story.
This house was built to function as a tea house, beyond the two bathrooms next to each other, it has a kitchen designed for production. I mightn’t have landed in a better place! I like to call it “the laboratory” because I feel like it is. My endeavors start from there and at the same time it is my home, where I am, where I express myself, every corner represents me. I have two libraries, the one with books and the one with bottles… not to mention the kitchen, 3 refrigerators, 2 freezers, machines and tools for whatever you can think of.
There is also the room with the millions of little bottles, there I make tinctures, distill, dry plants, dehydrate things and it is filled with aromas that constantly mutate. And in another space I have my altar, my crystals, my essences to connect.
I really enjoy working at home. When I am in the process of creating things I have all the means to do tests, sometimes I just stop to observe different sectors and that’s how ideas appear. In my case, creativity comes more easily, the more connected I am with myself. I also feed it by reading, observing and sometimes ideas simply present themselves to me. “Sometimes I have a cocktail for breakfast” is my internal phrase to explain that some idea presented itself to me at night… (laughs).
How do you define yourself professionally?
For a long time I identified with the name of bartender but the constant search has made me feel that it is more than that. That’s why today I like to call myself a “beverage professional”, a mix of alchemy, mixtures, making drinks, planning ways to run bars, standardizing processes, dealing with suppliers, preparing supplies, guiding work groups, generating experiences, learning. , provide service, among several other things. Even so, I feel that the term does not cover all aspects.
Where are you working now?
I carry out two personal ventures. “Motivos” where I put together bars for events and “Diucon Botánicos” where I make supplies and other magic.
Eventually I do some consulting for bars and restaurants in Bariloche.
The last drink that Maru created, this last summer
Your latest creation?
I am very restless and I find myself in constant search, I feel that the bars where I am are the window of an artistic expression. One of the most heartfelt that I developed in recent times was a tribute to my grandmother who changed plans last year. It is a cocktail that is on the Fuegos de Patagonia menu, designed to remember it in each of its ingredients. It’s called Rosa Lucía, it has whiskey macerated in black figs and pecan nuts, Italian vermouth and a bitter that I named 511 with malt and orange peels. Every time I prepare it I am transported to my childhood, gathering figs with it to prepare sweets. The bitter automatically takes me to her kitchen in San Martín (Buenos Aires province) with the aroma of malt and the strip of orange peel that always hung from her window to add to the mates. Every time I read a Rosa Lucía in the Fuegos de Patagonia order, my soul smiles.
How travel affects these creative processes.
I love traveling, I do it every time I can. I feel like I need it. All the places I visited in my life always gave me something. I use them for inspiration, open-mindedness and observation. My last long trip was to Europe in winter 2022. For three months I visited Valencia, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca and London. I worked a little behind the bar and also did some training; the most significant was Distillation of essential oils in the heart of Palma de Mallorca. The feeling was that I was remembering information already present in me, I thought I was going to learn a technique, but I ended up learning a little more to connect with myself and with the plants. It was a very beautiful experience.
The exchange with colleagues from other places, with different resources and different cultures is like an accelerated course. Working in other countries, in addition to teaching you to open your mind and test yourself, connects you with who you are, you are there, alone in the world, you consider your existence, your purpose, that I feel was the last one for me.
How does native/wild flora and vegetation illuminate potential creations of yours?
We live in such a magical place that every movement is inspiring. I am constantly looking around me, I feel the need to know more all the time, I see a plant that catches my attention and I stop to see what it is and how I might work it to use in a cocktail or what else it would combine well with.
I think that cocktails are growing steadily in the region and I think it’s great. We have many things in our favor in Patagonia that give us identity, such as the abundance of inputs to use. I think that growth challenges us and makes us more creative.
Maru Ávila, beverage professional from Bariloche
Part of my family lives in Epuyén and every time I travel there I connect a little more with the plants and nature of the region, that place is very special. The abundance of nature is incredible, every time I go I discover something new, which I had not paid attention to before.
You also work with companies that require your knowledge to create new drinks.
At the end of 2021, Quilmes contacted me to join their Cervecería Patagonia team with a new challenge, to create a gin recipe with botanicals from the region. It was a very enriching experience. We created the Ginkgo recipe, we distilled it and we saw it born recently on the market. It was a beautiful job. Seeing it available throughout the country today and remembering what the process was like is another thing that makes me smile every day.
Today in retrospect I feel lucky, for this and for everything that is coming my way and how my career is evolving.
How do you see the panorama of your profession in Patagonia.
I think that cocktails are growing steadily in the region and I think it’s great. We have many things in our favor in Patagonia that give us identity, such as the abundance of inputs to use. I think that growth challenges us and makes us more creative.
Your challenges from now on.
Provide new experiences, improve inputs, find new ones and with this collaborate to connect people in the present, in flavors and aromas, capable of invoking or generating emotions without intermediaries.
I am passionate, my challenge is always to keep evolving.
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