Imbibe 75 Person to Watch: Victor Lopez

You can learn a lot about Victor Lopez by sitting in his agave bar, Mixteca, in Manhattan’s West Village. The soaring arched-back bar is shaped like many you would find in his native state of Puebla in Mexico. So are the walls, which are partly made with agave fibers, and partly covered with the colorful, hand-painted Talavera tiles that are famously native to Puebla. The cocktail menu, composed primarily of agave drinks, is almost entirely of his making, including the Bandera, a trio of shots that includes Lopez’s own recipe for Sangrita. “I think I put all my soul in this bar,” he says.

But Lopez has been a part of the New York cocktail scene since 2007 when he began as a bar back at PDT, after working at the bar’s associated hot dog joint, Crif Dogs, for five years. Lopez worked his way up to a lead bartender role, and after a decade, current PDT owner Jeff Bell (who had initially bar backed for Lopez in 2010) suggested they open a cocktail bar influenced by Mexican culture. The pandemic sidetracked those plans for a few years.

But last year, Mixteca finally became a reality, giving Lopez ownership of his first bar after nearly 20 years in the industry. The menu is composed of the usual agave drink classics, as well as original cocktails based on classics, but each with a unique touch making the drink Mixteca’s own. The Batanga, for instance, includes Mexican fernet, and the house Old Fashioned features huitlacoche, the corn fungus prized in Mexico. And then there’s the drink which could define the bar, made of mezcal, tequila, Cynar, cassis, and mole, and named Puebla York. “If you go to any restaurant or bar in the city,” explains Lopez, “at least one or two people are from Puebla.”

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