In celebration of Imbibe’s 20th anniversary, this year our print issues are spotlighting the cocktails that made their mark on the world and continue to endure as modern classics. When we featured the Barbacoa in our March/April issue, I knew I wanted to expand the coverage to include its origin story, especially since I was lucky enough to enjoy one made by its creator Julian Cox … in its birthplace, Rivera, … the year it came out.

Back in 2009, restaurant cocktails were still not really a thing. The focus was very much on wine lists. The cocktail menus were offered more as a courtesy to those who might want something after dinner, and the selection was generally simple mixed drinks and classics. It took bartenders like Vincenzo Marianella (Providence), Sam Ross (Comme Ça), and Julian Cox (Rivera) as well as the visionary chefs whose restaurants they created bar programs for to change the game. Using the same fresh ingredients the chefs had gathered from farmers’ markets in cocktails seemed like a no-brainer, but amazingly it wasn’t until drink makers like them made it happen.

But the Barbacoa not only elevated people’s perception of restaurant cocktails but it opened their eyes to mezcal, which, at the time, was a little-known spirit. “Bartenders were using mezcal as a modifier back then, and not many people had heard of it before,” Julian told me for my piece, “How It Started: Julian Cox’s Barbacoa Cocktail.”

Follow the link to read how Julian put the cocktail together, including what inspired it and what Chef John Sedlar thought of it.