From salmon-flavoured gin to chorizo-flavoured whisky: Is this Spain's most disruptive bartender?

From salmon-flavoured gin to chorizo-flavoured whisky, Antonio Naranjo sees no limits to the unusual flavour combinations he can introduce to his cocktails.

“I always try to go to the weird parts that people don’t know,” he says. “If I need to make a cocktail weird, I go for something like anchovies, or maybe salmon or maybe cheese. Something normally you don’t find in the bar.”

The Cuban mixologist has been playing with people’s palettes for years, since he first decided to become a bartender after leaving Cuba at age 20. His recipes go far beyond your classic cocktails, producing what he calls “disruptive drinks.”

Born into a family of artists, Naranjo says his great-grandfather was one of the first 'cantineros' in Cuba, a pioneer of the elegant bartending tradition the country became known for. Naranjo says he stumbled into bartending because people assumed he knew how to make cocktails due to his heritage.

“My first time making drinks was in hostellery school,” he says. “When guests ordered a drink they would always give me this responsibility (to bartend) because I’m Cuban and they think for sure I know how to (make drinks). And I loved it.”

But the turning point for him, when he really began getting creative with cocktails, happened while he was an apprentice for the world-renowned chefs Ferran and Albert Adrià. Naranjo says he spent six months at their Barcelona establishments Tickets and 41 Degrees, where the Michelin-starred chefs inspired him to “mix with sense.”

“(The Ferrans) always said to me, you need to ask all the questions about why this colour, why these flavours, why this alcohol base,” he says. “And as soon as you have all the answers and the cocktail is mixed, then it’s done.”

After his apprenticeship,