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A visiting bartender pays homage to powerful women in residency at Bad Harriet in Aspen

Gabriela Lozada, from the Brujas bar in Mexico City, prepares drinks at Bad Harriet in Aspen on March 15, 2023. Lozada is participating in a “Bar Luminaries” residency at Bad Harriet that’s tied to the Hotel Jerome’s Women’s History Month programming.
Eleanor Bennett
/
Aspen Public Radio
Gabriela Lozada, from the Brujas bar in Mexico City, prepares drinks at Bad Harriet in Aspen on March 15, 2023. Lozada is participating in a “Bar Luminaries” residency at Bad Harriet that’s tied to the Hotel Jerome’s Women’s History Month programming.

The Hotel Jerome is celebrating Women’s History Month with a spotlight on visiting female chefs and bartenders from around the world. And this week, that includes a “Bar Luminaries” residency at the hotel’s Bad Harriet speakeasy for Gabriela Lozada from Mexico City.

Lozada is part of the all-female team at Brujas, a bar named for its location in a building called the “Casa de las Brujas,” or “House of the Witches.” Lozada honors that history in her cocktails, which are a tribute to powerful women with ingredients inspired by Mexican herbalism; the current menu at Brujas is focused on female activists who advocate for social causes.

“There is like an homage to all the women that somehow [were] being called ‘witch,’ because they do something different, or they're not in the standard canon of what a woman means,” Lozada said.

The team at Brujas bucks convention too, with its all-female crew in a historically male-dominated industry. Lozada recognizes that, and the “idiosyncrasies” of a “machista,” or sexist, culture.

“The best compliment that I get, it's when they realize that we are women but they didn't realize before,” Lozada said. “They said. like, ‘Oh, I didn't realize that you are all female bartenders here.’ Exactly. The gender doesn't matter, so that's my point. I feel very honored that I have this opportunity to show it.”

What does matter, she said, is professionalism and passion.

Her residency at Bad Harriet runs through Sunday. Another women-led bar, “Pacific Standard” based in New York City, is slated for a residency at Bad Harriet March 29th through April 2nd.

Bad Harriet is located below the historic Aspen Times building on Main Street in Aspen.

Kaya Williams is the Edlis Neeson Arts and Culture Reporter at Aspen Public Radio, covering the vibrant creative and cultural scene in Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley. She studied journalism and history at Boston University, where she also worked for WBUR, WGBH, The Boston Globe and her beloved college newspaper, The Daily Free Press. Williams joins the team after a stint at The Aspen Times, where she reported on Snowmass Village, education, mental health, food, the ski industry, arts and culture and other general assignment stories.