A cocktail called Simbiosis — built on Flor de Caña 12 Year Old rum, sacha inchi, tonka bean, cherimoya and lime — has won Anthony Salazar a place at the global final of Flor de Caña's Sustainable Cocktail Challenge. Salazar, who works at Hotel IntiRumi in Caraz, took the Peruvian title in a national final held in the San Martín region, the stretch of northern Peru where the Andes slide down into the Amazon basin.
This year's edition, dubbed "Road to the Amazon," ran from September 30 to October 2 and whittled 86 entrants down to eight finalists: Fiorella Larrea, Kelvin Paredes, Salazar, Samuel Serna, Alessandra Dejo, Pedro Huamán, Samuel Guevara and Luis Sarmiento. The final itself played out at Hotel Sauce Resort on the shores of Laguna Azul, a lagoon that has become one of San Martín's signature sights. Judges came from three angles — Danil Nevsky, winner of the 2024 Spirited Award for Best International Bar Mentor; María Fernanda Vivanco, a sommelier with a doctorate in rural sociology; and Luis Flores, a bartender specialising in Amazonian ingredients and ancestral know-how.
Salazar's concept leans on the idea that the mountains and the jungle feed each other — hence "simbiosis." Fiorella Larrea of Belmond Miraflores Park in Lima took second place; Alessandra Dejo of Los Primos de San Juan came third.
What's interesting for anyone who orders cocktails on holiday is how this competition scores its drinks. Sustainability carries as much weight as the classics: flavour, aroma and appearance each count for a quarter of the marks, creativity and technique another 25 percent, and storytelling and presentation the rest. Competitors are pushed to use local, seasonal produce, cut waste, reuse by-products and explain the thinking behind each recipe. In other words, the story you're told at the bar is part of the drink — a trend that's spreading well beyond Peru.
For travellers, the whole event doubles as a guide to a corner of Peru most visitors skip. San Martín sits between the highlands and the jungle, and its capital region around Tarapoto and Laguna Azul has quietly built a name for itself with waterfalls, lagoons and a food-and-drink scene built on Amazonian produce — sacha inchi seeds, tropical fruit, cacao. Salazar now heads to Nicaragua for the global final in early 2027, where he'll carry the Andes-Amazon story onto an international stage.
If you've done Machu Picchu and Lima's bar scene and want something greener and less crowded, San Martín is the obvious next stop — and now you can drink your way through it with a winner's recipe as inspiration.
