Quema Que Quema
Medellín, Colombia
TOTCSPIRITED2026
Regional honoree for Best New International Cocktail Bar at the 2026 Spirited Awards.
Set inside one of the few remaining historic buildings in El Poblado, Quema Que Quema opened in 2025 as a Caribbean bar where salsa music and international cocktail classics share equal billing. The bar works through a menu of roughly one hundred classics while the kitchen sends out coastal Colombian cooking, from jerk chicken to ceviche caribeño, and on Friday and Saturday nights a full salsa orchestra takes over the upper floor. The house signature is El Arriero, built on Aguardiente Antioqueño, cacao, and Colombian coffee, a drink the team is positioning as a national cocktail for Colombia. Run by operator Juan David Zapata, the bar was among the host venues of Medellín Cocktail Week 2026, part of a wave that has turned the city into one of Latin America's most exciting emerging bar scenes.
