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Philadelphia restauranteur and agave champion David Suro-Piñera is among 12 drink industry professionals named to Food & Wine’s inaugural list of “drink visionaries,” released Thursday. Suro-Piñera was named to the list for the work he put in to transform Tequilas — his long running Mexican restaurant that was partially razed in a 2023 kitchen fire — into a sleek cafe-bar-restaurant trio while running Siembra Spirits, a beverage company that highlights traditional Mexican spirits and sustainable mezcal production. “I’m a bridge between amazing people. I introduce some of the best our industry has to the best that Mexico has when it comes to agave spirits,” Suro-Piñera told Food & Wine. “I have such a deep respect for agave culture and agave spirits. They’re such emblematic symbols of Mexico.” The drink visionaries list is a new annual awards program from the magazine designed to honor the pioneers “reshaping the culture” around how and why we drink, Food & Wine editor-in-chief Hunter Lewis said in a statement. The list’s honorees include representatives from distilleries, bars, vineyards and breweries, and were selected from hundreds of nominees by a 60-member panel of editors and hospitality professionals. Other Food & Wine drink visionaries include indigenous bartender and spirit advocate Danielle Goldtooth, South Africa’s AJABU Cocktail & Spirits Festival founder Colin Colin Asare-Appiah, and the co-founders of regenerative Napa Valley winery Matthaisson Wines Jill and Steve Matthiasson. Championing the traditions around growing agave for mezcals has been Suro-Piñera’s north star since he opened Tequilas in 1986 as upscale un-Americanized Mexican restaurant. The name Tequilas, Suro-Piñera told Food & Wine, was deliberate: While some thought the name had negative connotations, Suro-Piñera believed it made clear his mission of demystifying agave spirits. » READ MORE: Two years after a devastating fire, Mexican destination Tequilas returns — as two restaurants And demystify them he has. Suro-Piñera’s 2023 book Agave Spirits with co-author Gary Nabhan won a 2024 James Beard award for its reflection on how the overproduction and cloning of agave can strip away the tradition from distilling mezcal, which has involved slow-cooking agave for days at a time since the 16th century. In 2015, Suro-Piñera founded Siembra Spirits in Guadalajara, Mexico — where he grew up — as a way to import sustainable agave-based spirits into the U.S., including tequilas made with stone tools in steam ovens from Mexico’s Jalisco region. Suro-Piñera also leads groups of bartenders and hospitality professionals (including The Inquirer’s own Craig LaBan) on tours of old-school mezcal producers in Mexico to showcase the industry’s beauty and inherent challenges. » READ MORE: Mexican spirit, Philly energy with David Suro His other agave advocacy efforts include the Siembra Suro Foundation, a nonprofit he created to provide jimadores — the farmers who tend to agave fields — and the communities they live in with access to clean drinking water, solar electricity, and schooling for their children. » READ MORE: Meet Center City’s best new cocktail bar — and its $27 not-a-margarita agave cocktail When Suro-Piñera and his children reopened Tequilas at 1602 Locust St. earlier this year, the restaurant’s ornate dining room was restored, with two additions: La Jefa, an adjoining all-day cafe with Mexican coffee, natural wines, and more agave cocktails; and La Jefa Milpa, a back-door cocktail bar that swaps the standard margarita for more elevated drinks infused with corn, guava, and tamarind.
