Bartender Ignacio Oreamuno said the best drinks are made with the freshest ingredients and intention.
“I discovered you can create a special ingredient in the cocktail, which is just love,” Oreamuno said. “All of these drinks have the same receipts, but they don’t come out the same. And you can tell when it just doesn’t have love.”
Oreamuno recently started working at the Waterhouse restaurant in Peterborough. Before that, he was bartending at the Fox Tavern at the Hancock Inn for two years.
Since coming to the Waterhouse, he has created a new classic cocktail menu including standards like the Hemingway Daiquiri, which is made with rum, maraschino liqueur, simple syrup and grapefruit and lime juice.
“Basically the new drinks here will be classic drinks extremely well done,” he said.
Also on his classic drinks menu is the Basil Mojito – a refreshing twist on the classic rum-based mint-flavored Mojito. And he brings a South American flair to the menu with his Strawberry Caipirinha, a popular Brazillain drink. The Caipirinha is known as the national drink of Brazil and is made with Cachaça, a spirit made from fermented sugarcane juice. “It’s one of those drinks, the moment you have it you know you’ve got to have more.”
The 41-year-old only came to bartending a few years ago when an epiphany turned his life upside down. “Basically, I used to work in New York in advertising. I was an executive there. I ran a big advertising company. I had employees and everything. I was at the top of my career, making tons of money and I thought what If I just stop and reincarnate while I am still alive and see what else is there.”
So he quit, bought a camper and went on the road. While traveling the country, he decided to pursue a career in something he already loves. “I love making drinks. I love making drinks for my friends.” So he took a mixology course in California and began tending bar in the places he visited.
“When I did this trip, the problem with it is you lose the ability to do things that you don’t love. So I can’t hold a job just for money. I can only do things that my soul approves of,” Oreamuno said.
The Costa Rican-born Oreamuno moved to Hancock to be close to his main love, his six-year-old daughter, who lives in Peterborough. Though he does winter in Costa Rica because he doesn’t do well in the cold New Hampshire winters, he said. “I think we’re made to be, not in a fridge. … I’m solar-powered.”
In Costa Rica, he runs two businesses. The first is a moveable bar in an 18-foot long mobile trailer dubbed The Troubardour. The other is a travel and adventure business: The Dream Catchers. “I take people on blind journeys. They don’t know where they are going what they are doing. I literally pick them up at the airport and I take them on the journey of their lives. It’s about completely surrendering to the present moment.”
Whether he’s mixing a drink or planning a journey for a travel client, Oreamuno says his mission is to create an experience to further that person on their journey in life.
“It’s not really about drinks when you think about it. When you go to the bar you have different energies that are coming at you. … Someone’s lonely, someone’s angry, someone’s happy, someone’s emotional, someone’s reminiscing of the past, someone’s dreaming of the future and all those people are sitting right in front of you. So it’s an exchange of energy. … That’s why I take my time making the drinks” creating it with the intention he thinks the patron needs in that moment. “I like that human connection.”
It’s a connection that is keeping Oreamuno on his journey. “I feel more energy the more I go in the direction of this new life.”