Medellín Cocktail Week 2026 runs from June 1–5, bringing 76 bartenders from 29 cities to Colombia for five days of guest shifts, masterclasses, and a community education program that has already transformed more than 80 lives.
What Is Medellín Cocktail Week
The second edition of Medellín Cocktail Week — founded by beverage brand Juniper and spearheaded by Medellín entrepreneur Juan David Zapata — builds directly on the momentum of its 2025 debut. That inaugural edition drew 250 attendees per day to its talks, saw 300 people work across 27 events, and resulted in 7,000 cocktails poured at 18 bars across the city. The 2026 edition scales that ambition upward, with 76 bartenders from 47 bars across 29 major global cocktail cities joining 13 Colombian bars in the host programme.
The event’s primary venue is Mamba Negra, the 22nd-floor bar in El Poblado that currently ranks #81 on The World’s 50 Best Bars 2025 list. The space marries signature cocktails with Colombian cuisine and sweeping views of the city — and houses Mamba Lab, an R&D facility developing tasting experiences built exclusively around Colombian ingredients. Seminars on June 1 and 2 will be hosted at the Marriott Hotel Medellín.
The Lineup — 29 Cities, One Week
The guest roster for Medellín Cocktail Week 2026 reads like a dispatch from the top tier of the global bar world. Lorenzo Antinori of Bar Leone in Hong Kong — ranked #1 on The World’s 50 Best Bars 2025 — headlines a list that includes former number-ones and current top-ten holders.
Erick Van Beek of Handshake Speakeasy in Mexico City (#1 in 2024) and Giorgio Bargiani of The Connaught in London (the reigning number-one in both 2020 and 2021) bring a combined depth of experience that would be rare to find on any continent, let alone in a single week’s programming. Lorenzo Querci of Moebius in Milan (#7 in 2025) and Rémy Savage of Bar Nouveau in Paris (#17) round out the European contingent. From Latin America, Gabriela León and Alonso Palomino of Lady Bee in Lima (#13) and Inés De Los Santos of CoChinChina in Buenos Aires (#26) represent the region’s own world-class scene. Barcelona-based drinks consultant Danil Nevsky also joins the program.
Each visiting bartender will work a guest shift at one of Medellín’s 18 host bars and conduct masterclasses designed to elevate the local scene. Entry to all guest shifts is free — patrons pay only for their drinks.
The Host Bars
The 18 Medellín host bars form the backbone of the week’s programming. Among them: Mamba Negra, Belisario, Test, Krudo Viches y Vinilos, Mala Audio Bar, Carmen, Quema Que Quema, Casa de Nadie, Zombra, Calante, Náufrago, Penumbra, and Susurro Susurro — a cross-section of the city’s most vital venues that collectively define Medellín’s position as a serious cocktail destination.
Participation comes with conditions. Every host bar must commit to mentoring a young person through their training or integrating a graduate from the Brindando Sueños program into their team. That requirement is not a footnote — it is the structural mechanism that keeps the event’s social mission running year after year.
Brindando Sueños — The Social Engine
Underneath the glamour of the guest shifts runs a program that may matter more in the long term than any cocktail served during the week. Brindando Sueños (Toasting Dreams) is a community education initiative founded in 2025 by Juan David Zapata in collaboration with the Medellín mayor’s office. It delivers introductory bartending and hospitality training to at-risk youth, giving them vocational skills and direct access to the city’s booming bar industry.
For the program’s first cohort, the bartending instructor screened more than 200 prospective students. Of those selected, 35 graduated in September 2025 and immediately entered a job placement program. By the time the 2026 edition kicks off, more than 80 young people from Medellín’s disadvantaged neighborhoods will have acquired the skills to enter the industry workforce through the related Bartender Learning for Life initiative.
“Each cocktail served is an experience, each conversation an inspiration, and each encounter an opportunity to celebrate local talent and open doors to a more inclusive and hopeful future,” Zapata has said of the program’s ethos.
Juan David Zapata — The Architect
Born and raised in Comuna 13 — once considered one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the world during the 1990s — Juan David Zapata’s personal story mirrors the arc of Medellín itself. Today he co-owns Mamba Negra, runs Casa de Nadie restaurant, and operates Quema Que Quema, a Caribbean bar opened in 2025 inside a restored mid-20th-century house where salsa music and international cocktail classics share equal billing. He also distills Selva Gin and manages the Juniper beverage brand.
It was Zapata who brokered the partnership with the mayor’s office that gave Brindando Sueños its institutional foundation — ensuring the program outlasts any single edition of the festival.
“Medellín has gone through a remarkable transformation,” he says. “It went from being a city stigmatized by violence to one that is now a destination, where creative cuisine and mixology are thriving with ever-lofty standards. Medellín Cocktail Week plays a key role in this journey; educating, bringing together leading figures in the industry for a week, and continuing to refine our hospitality. The social dimension, which aims to provide opportunities for young people and integrate them into the workforce, is something that keeps our industry united. Medellín, today, has one of the strongest scenes on the continent. We’re a community that cares for one another, respectfully and supportively.”
Why It Matters
Few cocktail weeks anywhere in the world combine a roster of this calibre with a structural social commitment embedded into the participation rules. The requirement that every host bar mentor or hire a Brindando Sueños graduate makes the community mission self-replicating rather than ceremonial — and it ties the international talent directly to local impact.
For the global bar community, Medellín Cocktail Week 2026 is a signal: the city is no longer an emerging story. It is a confirmed destination, and the week of June 1–5 will be one of the most concentrated gatherings of World’s 50 Best Bars talent anywhere in 2026.
