0:00 you know when i got your bio the first thing that struck me was this is someone who is finding his way to wow well it's not just the pressure from you know my father or societal pressures as well too there's his people saying well you're you're in your early 20s you're having fun but one day you'll settle down you'll have a real job a real career which for me was always a slap in the face because i worked with people who were essentially they were called lifers it was uh people who are professional servers professional bartenders and i feel like they would just cast it aside as like oh they're just they they failed in life and now they just work in restaurants which is ridiculous some of
0:35 these people made more money than some of my friends who have degrees and i was like oh i can make a living out of this but it was just one of those i didn't put it one of those issues i just had to come to terms with and just be accepting of you know my path i realized you know this is not the path i wanted to go down i didn't want to study i didn't want to do this i wanted at first i wanted to have fun i wanted to be happy and being happy for me meant pursuing my interests and pursuing these different paths that just led me to different adventures who are you and where are you going
1:15 what do you want together we'll find the ideal path on the way to wow show with your host kevin bemel so for our first episode in what is now our newly crowned studio here at allendale's we have something really special in store for you our bartender is bryant orozco and aside from making what he's been tantalizing me with it sounds like a fantastic cocktail
1:50 we're going to sit down with bryant and learn about him and i don't know if he would quite call it this but i would call it almost a quest to understand his heritage and i think that that's as relevant a way to wow as anything we've ever talked about so i'm going to turn things over to bryant well thank you kevin this cocktail we're going to be working on i like to call the time into loom which is a very tangy and uh tamarind-centric cocktail
2:26 utilizing mezcal lime juice curacao and a tamarind syrup that's a cold brewed and steeped overnight so what we're going to do first is grab our shaker and we're going to start off with one ounce of lime juice we don't have the proper pouring vessel but we'll make it work going out to lime juice we're going to do one ounce of our tamarind syrup which this is going to be tamarind soaked overnight and made into a pulp and then mixed in with some brown sugar simple syrup we are going to do a half ounce of
3:03 curacao which is an orange decor we'll cut back on that and then we're going to do an ounce and a half of any mezcal preferably you want to work with a mezcal that's not too smoky but it has more of a medium smoke and a little sweetness to it so put that in there to balance out the acidity you don't want it to be too acidic you don't want to lift the pucker up too much you want to add a little pinch of salt to that there we go we'll grab some of our ice over here
3:38 we're going to place that into our small shaker ice is a little melted you got to get the bigger ice cubes let's see put our big tin give it a nice little tap make sure it's nice and snug and shake away as you're shaving grab your glassware you're all set ready to go nice little smack
4:16 then before we put it into our glassware shown over here i'm going to add a little bit of soda water kind of give it a little effervescence a little bubbly and since we're making a cocktail for two here we'll just add a little splash here a little splash there we'll add some more ice to our glasses that way our drake stays nice and cool
5:00 and then straighten this guy out give a little swirl one there one there and to finish that off here to add a little extra sweetness we're gonna garnish it with an orange wedge if you happen to have any saligusano it's always nice to add a little sprinkle above the oranges here there you go it's your time in tulum [Music]
5:36 oh great thank you cheers wow yeah tangy hard yeah but yeah tangy tart a little bit smoky probably from the mezcal now right yeah so good have a seat glad you enjoyed it yeah absolutely from when you uh told me about the recipe i was thinking this has got to be something really unique so right it's perfect for those weather too yeah absolutely absolutely great summertime
6:11 cocktail so you know when i got your bio the first thing that struck me was this is someone who is finding his way to wow which is you know is you know the name of the show and um i don't think it's you know wow what you want who are you it's not a destination it's it's a journey and it seemed to me that you were that you are on a journey a journey of discovery self-discovery but discovery of
6:46 of the things that interest you that you have passion for um normally i start out a an interview by you know reading a bio but rather than doing that i thought just start out by having you tell us you know a little bit about your background how you got to where you are today because uh you know it's the sort of twists and turns your life has taken are really i think quite fascinating and i think we we can all use it as kind of an object lesson so well just why don't you tell us kind of you
7:21 know in your own words right um where you started where you've gone where where you're headed well where do i start well i guess where i got today i'm born and raised in long beach but i'm a first generation son of immigrants from mexico and we were fortunate enough that my parents finally got their legal documents to travel back and forth to mexico and every summer we would go to either my dad's hometown and nayarit just states there were several cities and towns we would go to but i do recall summers spending them in
7:56 sugarcane fields cornfields agave fields and running up and down those fields and you know being able to see where my family my heritage came from on my mom's side they're more they're located in northern mexico in the state of sonora which is south of arizona very deserted but as you go towards the mountains there's a lot more uh cattle ranches and that's where my you know my uh other part of my heritage came from so to be able to witness my family heard cattle be on horseback and just see the uh just the beautiful landscapes of the desert in the mountains i mean it was
8:31 just something it was it instilled something in me as a child and i've always retained that mentality as you know coming back to the city and thinking man i wish i were back in the mountains or the desert of the beaches i'm sorry you think of that kind of lifestyle as being something you know from a hundred years ago right i mean you see movies about the old west or this or that right right we i you know i'm sure there's lots of people who live that way now but they they don't really come into our you know our our daily cognizance right i mean you sure i i still there's a family that still lives the same way they retain the old
9:07 um you i don't want to see the old valleys but the old styles of living the old you know the old work hurting cattle going off to the mountains you know tennis of the land tending to their crops and it's nice to be able to see that and still retain that connection with my family for sure so growing up after high school i had the idea that i was supposed to go to college i was supposed to receive a degree and be successful it was something that was instilled in me you know growing up especially coming from immigrant parents so i went to school and the more i studied the more i realized i did not like studying things that did not pertain to my my interests i figured i want to get to medical
9:43 school because i was always told you're gonna be successful you're gonna be a doctor you're gonna be a lawyer you have to be one of those things right and this is going to be you're sure you're not jewish right you've got to be a doctor a lawyer all i heard growing up was you have to be a doctor a lawyer accountant right yeah and then especially being the oldest to being the oldest son it was always that that mounting pressure where like you have to be successful you also have to be the example for your younger brother so it was one of those things long story short that didn't work out but um as i was aiming to go to medical school i figured you know what i i'm gonna try to get my prereqs in biochemistry i enjoyed the classes i just did not like studying so
10:18 i would kind of read ahead i would bash around some chapters and not study for my exams and like completely dropped out of that and i figured well maybe i'll do something easier i just want to make money right away i'll get into nursing so i took the prerequisites for nursing took a course of microbiology and at that time i was already working in the service industry working with craft beers and wine learning how to ferment learning a little the process and the history behind it so with the last of my financial aid money i bought brewing equipment i dropped out of school so i was like oh now i don't know what i'm doing but i'm just going to work and i'm going to keep on studying what i want to study and as that progressed for a couple of
10:54 years i ended up finding myself behind different styles of bars from craft beer bars to gastropubs to wine bars and then you know got into cocktails which started getting me to the realm of distillates and i started studying distillates i remember reading about tequila and mascara and i fairly recalled my grandmother talking about a type of mezcal that i used to make in northern mexico refer to baccanora and i remember trying so with my uncles you know a couple of drunken nights in mexico they would you know after drinking beer all day they would bring out this unmarked unlabeled bottle from someone's pickup truck from someone somewhere over the depths of someone's
11:30 house and i would drink this i was like oh my god this is terrible 15 years later i was like oh my god this is amazing yeah so it's interesting how not just your interests change over time but how your palette changes over time too so to kind of put those interests i was finding let's throw up my my uh what would i call it i guess my scholastic life and dropping out of school to pursue just my interest in working several jobs here and there i started figuring out well i do like learning about alcohol but i also like learning about my family and my heritage and to this day i still keep on finding those connections between those two
12:05 interests so how is it that you know you said okay college isn't for me right um how did your parents respond to what i think they might have felt was kind of a rejection of of their plan for you you know and and i think some parents even look at that as a rejection of themselves right it's like well you're you're our promise for the future you've destroyed the future right right how did your parents respond to that you know they both reacted very
12:41 differently um my mom always very nurturing very supportive she said mijo just keep on doing what you want to do and you're going to find yourself eventually and she was very supportive the entire way my father on the other hand eventually he turned you know the other way and was more supportive but in the beginning he was angry he was just telling me what are you doing with your life you're wasting your life you're just working these jobs at these grammy bars and you're working yourself to death and you're drinking every night it's like first of all i'm drinking every other night and you know it was just one of those things just to kind of keep up poking at him just to kind of get a reaction out of him but it was always one of those things
13:17 too where i still bring it up to this day where my father would tell me everything you're doing regarding you know your studies and alcohol drink is going to take you nowhere so now when i find myself in the most remote regions of mexico looking for mascara agave distillates i like to send him a selfie in the middle of nowhere and i'll just send him a little quote saying drinking will take you nowhere [Laughter] i still rub it in his face but you know it's all in good humor now and so and is is that how you dealt with i'm look criticism from a father right it can be it can be pretty tough fathers are they can be you know with the finger kind of thing you know
13:53 directed how did how did you um you know kind of keep your your presence of mind so to speak you know you're you're be able to you know continue doing what you're doing despite the kind of pressure that your father brought on you well it's not just the pressure from you know my father or societal pressures as well too there's just people saying well you're in your early 20s you're having fun but one day you'll settle down you'll have a real job a real career which for me was always a slap in the face because i worked with people who were essentially they were called lifers you know people who are professional service professional bartenders
14:28 and i feel like they would just cast it aside as like oh they're just they they failed in life and now they just work in restaurants which is ridiculous some of these people made more money than some of my friends who have degrees and i was like well i can make a living out of this but it was just one of those i didn't put it one of those issues i just had to come to terms with and just be accepting of you know my path i realized you know this is not the path i wanted to go down i didn't want to study i didn't want to do this i wanted at first i wanted to have fun i wanted to be happy and being happy for me meant pursuing my interests and pursuing these different
15:04 paths i just led into different adventures so you you mentioned in the bio you sent me that you were like about to take your exams and and then you just decided nope i'm i'm going to do this other thing and you didn't you actually didn't do your exams after studying for them and all that what was the i don't know the the aha moment or was there an aha moment that it suddenly hit you
15:40 i just i have to go in another direction this is just not the right thing for for for me and for my life well yeah the exams are referring to i was actually taking my wset the wine spirit education trust which is a i guess it's a prestigious piece of paper and yet it's just a piece of paper but it was something i was doing to study more about wine i at one point i worked on dining and i figured i wanted to go down to somewhere as we were studying wine it was interesting to me because i got just learning about different cultures and different regions
16:15 you would learn about wines from france from italy from portugal and each region we would spend a couple of weeks or days on a region we would spend weeks on france and i was already fully aware there was wine growing in mexico so during one of our lectures on the new world which i was i always kind of rejected that term in the world of wine with the old world of new world and i feel like it kind of gives a an area of like classism and a class of status where the old worlds were always the most prestigious wines and new worlds were you know lands that were colonized by these old world countries
16:50 and when they asked about more information regarding mexican wine you know this master sommelier there's only a handful here in california just told me essentially oh yeah it exists it's it's not that good and he would carry on for france or italy or some other european country for a couple more weeks and for me i wasn't hurt but i was in shock and i i never like to make things about you know a racial issue i don't like to make it as i don't like to single myself i try to fit in with it as much as possible but that moment i had this almost moment of clarity where you know i've always been a student to
17:25 sit to be sitting in the front of the class i love taking notes i love asking questions and then as they turn around i realize well there's me and one of the person the only people of color here in this classroom i'm taking all this time and spending all this money to learn about cultures that not don't necessarily pertain to me maybe we were colonized by a couple of like my assets were colonized by these people so i'm like you know what i need to apply all this knowledge and figure something out but i was i there was just something bubbling at me i don't know if it was anger i don't know if it was curiosity but after completing the course
18:00 and on the eve of my exam and it was a really long exam i studied my butt off yeah index cards notes it was like it was like be in college all over again right i figured you know what this this isn't for me it doesn't resonate with me culturally my my mind is there it's interesting but it's not me so one day to another i didn't even think about it i was in such an urge to go back to mexico that i took my car i took my backpack i had probably three changes of clothes in a notebook and i just i took off i told my parents on the way back you know and the way down in mexico hey guys uh i'm going to be back in a week or two
18:35 maybe and they were concerned because it was just kind of one of those things i just left out of the blue turns out a week or two ended up being seven months wow yeah i had to leave my car i couldn't cross my car i left everything in my car and as i'm packing everything out and i figured i was gonna take a bus down south i find my bag of bar tools and i'll say oh i forgot to take these out before i left and as i'm having this moment as like do i turn back do i go back home i've been here for a couple of weeks or do i keep on going down south took my backpack to my bar tools and that's all i had on my person for
19:12 for a couple of months oh it's almost like an odyssey right i mean you know the sort of the classic voyage of discovery right so what did what did you find what did you find down there well i found a lot of misery and despair within myself i didn't realize i was going through a very i was going through a depression and i think i was kind of escaping and i was utilizing this idea and this notion of finding myself to kind of leave everything behind i it was very unprofessional with me but given it was a different time in my life
19:47 but i left my i think i had two jobs at a time i left them without notice i just told hey guys i'm sorry i'm not coming back it was something i probably would never do again but i realized i was either escaping my old self or trying to find a path of mind yourself and as i'm going down there trying to deal with my inner turmoils i started fighting more about myself i started finding out that my family in northern mexico used to make a type of miscarriage they used to be baccanora so i started realizing wow this is something that runs in my blood and i should probably see him learn more about mezcal and more about
20:23 agave distillates and the further i went down south and i went to my dad's side of the family i found out that on that end i believe that my great-grandparents were also involved in the world of tequila and we're talking generations ago where they would load their mules with barrels and they would buy for tequila and sell to different cantinas and i was like so on both sides of my family this runs rampant that's i found that very unique interesting so me being you know the curious person i started going online i started looking for different agave distillates and seeing their origins and telling myself you know what i'm going
20:58 to go to this town and i'm going to try to locate or source this distillates or i'm going to go to this state i'll see what happens and for a good while i relied on intuition i didn't have a game plan i didn't have anything i just had my life savings which i was quickly dwindling and i was like i have no idea what i'm doing i'm spending all this money but i'm i'm just going down the rabbit hole and i'm going to see where life takes me and it was just following tuition for a while so if if so this is my this is my my question and i'm unfortunately running out of time so um it's gone way too fast can you boil down
21:34 for us one or two principles that you live your life by i know i'm putting on the spot here one or two principles that you live your life by now that that keep you out of that that sort of sad dark place and and and keep you optimistic for the future you know if i really had to boil it down the first one for me is just remain curious perceive the curiosity it's gonna bug you forever and i don't want
22:09 to be on my deathbed knowing that i could have i left something unanswered in my life and the second thing i could probably say is if you're not having fun stop doing it do something else that makes you happy so stay curious have fun yeah and with those two together you'll you'll to use the language of the show you'll you'll find your way to wow or you'll find your path to wow wonderful brian thank you so much thank you so
22:45 much fascinating story thank you i learned something really important from talking to bryant and that is when you're with someone who's on his way to wow there's a peacefulness about the person even when bryant was talking about times in his life where he was agitated or upset still there was this aura of peace about him because he's on his journey and he knows it's the journey he wants to be taking let's remember the advice that bryant
23:22 gave us first of all be curious and stay curious maybe you can't make your curiosity your profession right now pursue it as a hobby but what what you find interesting find some way to engage in it and have fun i mean life gives us lots and lots of opportunities to be sad to be upset let's let's find the times to have fun and let's make that part of our way to wow
23:59 courage at all times my friends marie you are still my bell darling [Music]
24:39 [Music] you