“My grandmother was the anchor in not just raising us, but we heard her fairy tales and folklore almost every single day,” says Magaña, who works at Platform 18, one of the Valley's most celebrated bars.
She'll put her cocktails to the test at the Paloma Punchout on Saturday evening at the Esplanade in front of an audience. The public is invited to cheer on the competition, with tickets available for $50 that include sample Paloma cocktails from local bars including The Brickyard, Clever Koi, Highball, Khla, Pigtails, and So Far So Good.
The event is the brainchild of Casey Wallin, a longtime Phoenix mixologist and founder of Mister Wallin’s Neighborhood, which aims to spotlight the stories of people in the industry, from those who make the liquor to those who shake the drinks.
Starting in May, Wallin traveled to 10 major cities to hold preliminary competitions and chose five to 10 bartenders participating from each market.
“We reviewed the recipes and chose the ones that seemed the most interesting and process-driven,” he says. “It’s an interesting way to challenge bartenders by having a cocktail that’s simplistic by nature, but also would present them a challenge to do something that was unique and interesting, but still in the vein of a Paloma.”
Arlene Magaña holds her winning medal from the previous round of the Paloma Punchout.
NTK Photography
“My grandmother was one of 14 children,” she says, “and at a very early age, she quit her studies to help her mother care for her younger siblings. This, of course, led her to become not just a great caretaker, but an amazing storyteller as well.”
She recalled a tale of people in Guanajuato who loved to eat all sorts of green food. Magaña notes that many of the salsas, and even posole and menudo, are green in that region.
“The story went that they consumed so much green food that their bellies became green,” Magaña says. “From there, I started choosing green ingredients.”
The base of any Paloma recipe is tequila and grapefruit juice or soda, but Magaña added unroasted coffee beans infused in kiwi syrup along with Abasolo, an ancestral corn whisky made in Jilotepec. The kiwi added color and tartness, and “the corn has butterscotch, caramel, and vanilla that really boosted the bright flavors,” she says.
Magaña expressed a grapefruit peel and swirled it into the drink to help boost the fragrance as well. Only six ingredients were allowed, and the garnish counted as one. But she didn't stop there. Magaña, who’s also an artist, created an image that she transferred onto the glass.
“I really wanted to incorporate my vision of Guanajuato,” she says, “which is the state my grandmother is from and what inspired her to become the woman she grew into.”
Bartender Arlene Magaña transferred her original artwork onto glasses to help tell the stories of her cocktails in the Paloma Punchout competition.
Arlene Magaña
"The idea for this new Paloma is going to be inspired by the idea of how the street vendor creates so much from what seems like so little," she says.
Instead of the whiskey, she’s adding Paranubes rum from Oaxaca with lime zest. She’s using the unroasted coffee bean-infused kiwi syrup, same as before, but adds, “I’ll also be making a coffee bean-kiwi chamoy to surprise the judges’ taste buds.”
Magaña is a relative newcomer to Phoenix, having moved here in October 2019 with the goal of taking her bartending career to the next level. Originally raised in the suburbs of Chicago, she started as a dishwasher at age 16 and worked “everywhere from dive bars to movie theaters to high-volume monsters where you can’t even take a breath before making another cocktail,” she says. “I learned a lot from every single one.”
While scrolling on Instagram and liking accounts, Magaña noticed a pattern.
“Most of these amazing bartenders were in Arizona or in the Phoenix area in general,” Magaña says. “Upon doing more research, I was like, you know what, there’s something happening there. Let’s go and see if we can be part of this amazing community.”
Within two months, Magaña and her husband, Raymond James, and their bulldog, Arya, made the move. After a hiatus due to the pandemic shutdown, they got back to work and she eventually made her way to Platform 18, the immersive train-themed bar in a replica Pullman car.
“They’ve been so welcoming and encouraging, and everyone’s so full of knowledge in that building," she says. "I never stop learning.”
Platform 18's Arlene Magaña moved to Phoenix to take her bartending career to the next level.
Grace Stufkosky Photography
“I have an idea for a little Paloma cart where I would love to provide quick, fresh draft Palomas with rotating flavors,” she says. “From there, hopefully, I’ll be able to grow into a permanent spot, or semi-permanent.”
She's also open to the idea of a food truck bar similar to Baby Boy inside the Pemberton in downtown Phoenix, which she cites as an inspiration.
The $10,000 Paloma Punchout prize would go a long way toward that goal. If Magaña wins, she says, she'll use the money toward furthering her education to become a business owner, learning more about spirits, and visiting her mother in Mexico.
"There’s so many spirits being made in Mexico, I want to learn all about them," she says.
Unfortunately, Magaña almost missed her chance at the big purse. Her car was stolen a little over a week before the contest. Although she got the car back, thieves pilfered all of her mobile bartending devices, liquors, mixers, infusions she’d made, paints, and other supplies that she needed to compete.
Magaña called Wallin and told him she might have to withdraw, but he wouldn't hear of it. Friends came to help her regroup. They made a list of what things Magaña would need to start over from scratch and how they could get a hold of them.
"What do we need?" she asked herself. "Some paint and some limes and a little willpower.”
She wrote a post on her Instagram account and received kind words and encouragement from friends and followers.
"That alone was enough to make me feel like I could be right back where I was in the next few days if I really put my mind into it,” she says.
The bar community pulled together to replace what she needed, including a printer to print out the new artwork for her glasses.
“Friends started dropping things off, whether it was material things or a little bit of their time to help me paint something or zest some limes,” Magaña says.
She marvels at the tight-knit nature of the bartending community in Phoenix.
“Thanks to the lovely people of this city, I’m going to be able to participate in this competition,” Magaña says. “With the help of the community, I was able to have something to work with. It’s not just me who gets to be a part of the competition at this point, it’s all of Phoenix.”
Paloma Punchout
Saturday, October 22, 8 to 11 p.m.2501 East Camelback Road
palomapunchout.com
