The first thing I ever heard about Kami Kenna is that she’s a super nice person. Although being kind is at the top of my list of virtues, it’s a testament to Kami’s personality that her reputation for friendliness could even momentarily overshadow an incredibly diverse and impressive career that spans the academic and practical intersection of spirits, food, culture, and sustainable supply chains.
Any one of Kami’s achievements would have made her an interesting candidate for this series of profiles. Escaping a conservative background to tend bar in the early days of Portland’s cocktail renaissance? Yes, I want to know more. Working as an assistant distiller in the Peruvian Andes? Partnering in a woman-owned Pisco brand? Nine years as an agave spirits guide and educator? Launching one of the most anticipated Mexican spirits of 2025? We truly could not choose a better subject for our continuing celebration of women’s history month. Read on to learn how a pisco cocktail led to an incredible adventure and why Kami would like to spend her next lifetime as a dog in the town of Tequila.
Where and when did you grow up, and how did that shape your values and life trajectory?
I grew up between Eastern Washington and North Idaho. I had spent time in Portland, Oregon with my very cool uncle and experienced the liberation of being free as a teen. It was my goal to move there as soon as it was legally possible and flee the conservative confines of my family and place. I was fiercely independent at a young age, ready to rebel and be free, with a degree of naïveté just short of being dangerous. After graduating from high school in Spokane, I moved to Portland in 1999. I was eighteen.
Growing up, I somehow knew I did not fit there and longed to be in a place that made me feel free. This is a feeling I have always chased and that has led me to live in Puerto Rico, New York, Cusco, and Oaxaca. In my family, I’m the only one of my generation who is not married, does not have kids, and lives outside of the country. I guess the conservative worldviews that I grew up within shaped me into a different kind of thinker, which I am grateful for.
What were your first first jobs and what did you learn from them?
TCBY in Spokane, Victoria’s Gourmet Pizza in Portland, The Brazen Bean in Portland. I learned that work is tied to self-sufficiency and independence, and unfortunately that my work ethic is tied to the patriarchy and capitalism–though this realization obviously came much later. My internal programming tells me that I am never doing enough, not doing it well, and should produce more. I have recognized that and am trying to harness it in a more healthy and positive way–thank you therapy.
How did you get into the spirits world?
My uncle opened a coffee shop that evolved into a popular bar during Portland’s first wave of cocktail bars in the late 90s. When I was 13, I was in Portland visiting him and tagged along as he ran errands and fervently printed menus. He put me to work painting the shelving behind the bar, polishing silverware, and helping with an elaborate floor-art installation that was finished moments before the start of the launch party. I remember the rush of it all–it was exhilarating and fascinating to see my uncle and his partners pull off a well-attended opening party for their new business, The Brazen Bean. When I was 17, he trained me as a barback. By 21, I was a cocktail server and eventually was trained as a bartender by some of the most efficient bartenders I have known to date–Phoebe Pederson and Ryan Anfuso.
The Brazen Bean was a high-volume cocktail bar; that experience prepared me to work in any bar and set me off onto a diverse path of tending bars all over Portland–and the world. Eventually, my gaze turned from crafting cocktails to investigating their ingredients. I began focusing on locally made beers, wines, and spirits. I visited production sites whenever possible. At some point, the raw materials and the people who made the alcohol became more important to me than fancy labels and marketing. By the time I was managing Church Bar in 2013, I was really deep diving into spirits and playing with the backbar by bringing in stuff with stories to tell.
You’ve spent a big chunk of your life in Mexico. How did that come about?
I have a degree in Spanish from Portland State University, with minors in Latin American film studies, Black studies, and photography. During my time at PSU, I was massively impacted by my favorite Chilango professor–drinking up Mexican literature, film, history, politics, and, quite frankly, anything he taught. He showed us Mexico and inspired me to visit the country for the first time on summer break. Another professor encouraged me to do an independent research project on race in Mexico. I traveled across the south of the country from DF to Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Veracruz. There were multiple subsequent trips to Mexico until I relocated to the country.
What was your introduction to agave spirits?
Throughout my bartending career, I was always drawn to tequila as a base for cocktail creation, but an agave spirits training with Clayton Szczech significantly changed the trajectory of that kinship. One of the bar owners from Church was roommates with Clayton, so he set up a tasting for us at their house. I remember tasting Fortaleza and calling it “angel juice,” as I learned of the production processes from this guy who had encyclopedic knowledge of production but who also conveyed an unparalleled respect toward the spirit, the place, and the people.
It impacted me and the other co-creators as well. Once we opened Church (the bar), we quickly built up a reputable collection of agave spirits because we had fallen in love with them. For me, it was an easy fall, given my background in Spanish and Latin American studies. I began to locate the spirits amongst my travels and the literature, the history, cinema, and culture of Mexico that I had studied for several years. They ceased to be cocktail ingredients and instead became cultural artifacts.
In 2016, I moved to Mexico to work for Experience Agave, which was called Experience Tequila at the time. Clayton founded this educational tour company in 2009. We coordinate single-day and multi-day tours to Mexico’s agave spirits regions. Experience Agave has been my longest employer (9 years!). I started working alongside Clayton as a tour host for the first years, soaking up the knowledge he shares with his guests, before becoming a tour coordinator and now senior tour coordinator.
Our team is small, and we all live this. This is our life and our livelihood–it is not a hobby. The tours are an extension of my bartending career and the culmination of my lifelong Spanish studies, passion for distillation, and adoration for Mexico–its food, drink, and people. While the tours certainly highlight tequila or mezcal, they equally celebrate exceptional local food and provide context through a historical and sociological perspective.
I always learn something new during a trip–be it about tequila, about production, or Mexico as a whole. Life gets boring if I’m not learning and growing, so this keeps me curious and keeps me excited about showing folks distilleries, tequila country, and Mexico.
How did you get into pisco?
Similarly to agave spirits, I worked behind bars making pisco sours. But a bartending competition brought me closer to the spirit. My approach to cocktails at the time, and which hasn’t really budged, is to look for potential flavor connections and parallels by researching the history, the place, food recipes, etc.
My co-competitor and I had one month to design a pisco cocktail. Through doing so, we learned about Peru, the grapes used for pisco, the other pisco cocktails, and Peruvian cuisine. In the end, our cocktail triumphed and took us to compete in the finals. The cocktail competition was put on by Vinum, a distributor in the Northwest with a great portfolio that got local bartenders engaging with their products. We won the Lucha-themed competition and walked away as Northwest Cocktail Champions with a trip to Peru! Given my background, there were zero doubts that I would stay in Peru beyond the trip. For me, it was an opportunity and a sign from the universe that it was time to combine my two worlds of academia and beverage. As I prepared to leave Portland, I made arrangements to work in a craft brewery in Cusco and visit a pisco producer—the same producer who is now my PiscoLogia business partner.
Tell us more about PiscoLogia
PiscoLogia was started by Meg McFarland and her husband, Fernando Gonzalez, a winemaker. In addition to PiscoLogia, the pair founded Apu Winery and are making some of Peru’s most sought-after wines, high up in the Andes. In 2015, I met up with Meg in Lima, where we learned of the serendipitous coincidence that we are both from Spokane, Washington. Meg and Fernando drove me out to Azpitia to meet Nati Gordillo, a world-renowned distiller and the third partner in our women-owned business. Nati grows her own grapes and distills them into pisco at her home. My work with Logia has been to convey Nati’s work through marketing, sales, cocktails, education, and advocacy.
In 2022, I presented my thesis work about pisco at New York University. I wanted to understand Peru’s pisco industry. In pisco, we do not have celebrities calling to start brands and large conglomerates investing in brands–yet. I wanted to know why and understand how to grow the category in a non-extractive manner, but grow it nonetheless.
Peru has more than 500 certified pisco producers, so why do we only see a handful of brands? Who are the distillers–the people behind them? I started tapping into my work in the agave spirits space and applying that lens to pisco. In 2022, we began bottling other small producers’ pisco as Logia Select Bottlings to share more pisco from Peru–a nod to mezcal brands.
By that I mean that I took inspiration from mezcal brands that bottle from around the country to showcase the diversity of mezcal in Mexico. I wanted to convey something similar by showcasing piscos from other producers in Peru. For example, some grape varieties only exist in Peru, there are fermentations in clay anforas that are centuries old, and distillation in falcas, a type of still the Iberians built upon arrival in Peru. This creates a diverse flavor-scape that few are aware of. At this point, only a handful of pisco brands make it to export markets (though that is changing). So it felt imperative to bottle some of those rare spirits in order to continue exposing people to producers that might not otherwise make it to their bar tops.
Can you tell me more about the Pisco Certificate Course?
The Pisco Certificate Course is a free tool for all. My business partner Meg, is an instructional designer and created the Pisco Certificate Course as a class project during the pandemic. It’s a self-paced virtual learning course that was created with our global distributors in mind, though bartenders, sommeliers, and the pisco curious are welcome as well. We have seen Peruvian restaurant groups in the US using it as a training device for their service staff.
Education is everything and something lacking in our category–the course even inspired a tequila made in the manner of nosto verde pisco where we interrupt the fermentation and distill. The residual sugars create concentrated aromas and flavors and, most notably, a silky mouthfeel. Next time you sip on Siempre Vivo, you can thank Peruvian pisco and the Pisco Certificate Course.
Can you talk about a few of your mentors and something that you have learned from each of them?
My uncle was an early mentor for me. He left Idaho at a young age recognizing that he did not fit there and found a place where he did. He showed me how to make the leap.
In the pisco space, Nati Gordillo is a distiller who works with integrity and intention. She taught me patience and discipline when producing–to cross the t’s and dot the i’s. I think her pisco reflects that.
In the agave spirits space, Clayton Szczech. Clayton’s ability to connect spirits to space and time is inspiring, and his motivation to understand Mexico 360 degrees–and not just as a place that makes tequila and mezcal, as marketing might lead you to believe. He has a multidimensional approach to learning–the guy is studying Nahuatl. Tequila and mezcal are words that both emerge from that language, so to understand them linguistically gives further insight. (Which is why I believe that understanding of Spanish is also entry-level to understanding the spirits of Latin America and really where my interests have intersected.)
Meg McFarland is fearless and has carved out a fascinating life living between the US and at her off-the-grid winery in Peru–all while raising two kids and growing multiple businesses. She is an amazing friend and business partner who has shown me anything is possible when you go for it.
What made you decide to go to graduate school and what did you take away from that experience?
A master’s degree in Food Studies at NYU sounded like what I needed to formalize my position as a beverage maker and researcher. It was a really fun program. Unfortunately, the pandemic moved the program online, and I was not able to cultivate a network in NYC that was related to the food industry. But that led me back to Mexico, and I am not sad about that one bit. Studying the US industrial food system has led me to take on projects in Mexico to preserve and even fortify locally produced ingredients by establishing sustainable supply chains for all parties involved. I’ve always respected food and beverage, but now that appreciation runs even deeper, and I see its vital connection to community, culture, and survival beyond capitalism.
It has been eye opening to live on the fringes of capitalism’s influence in Cusco and Oaxaca. It has helped me to see things from an Indigenous worldview–one where money is not at the center, but rather health–human and of the land. It’s powerful to recognize capitalism as a system and not as universal law.
I hope I can be a dog in Tequila in my next life, free from the demands to constantly produce for the machine.
What is one thing you’ve learned from your years in the industry?
Follow your gut and be limitless. I loved being a bartender. But given the toll it takes on the body, after 13 years I knew I needed to create other opportunities. I was planning to lean into my degree in Spanish and become certified as an interpreter in Ecuador when the opportunity to go to Peru came up. In Peru, I knew I would be able to move around the country with Spanish and that my fluency in cocktails, spirits, wine, and beer would lead me into work opportunities–it did and then some. I worked at Cerveceria del Valle Sagrado not long after they opened and eventually became the assistant distiller at Destileria Andina, where I managed distillation and helped develop their herbal digestif recipe, Matacuy. Trust yourself and the rest will follow.
What are your thoughts on “bro culture” in the industry?
I don’t think I have any in particular. Like I mentioned above, I have always worked tirelessly to be where I am today and have had to work twice as hard. I do feel a certain level of resentment, but also gratitude for what I have achieved despite it all.
Do you feel you’re treated differently as a woman in the industry in Latin American versus the US?
I have always fought for recognition and have always challenged the roles and boxes that I have been placed in. In the US, I fought to be taken seriously. And in Latin America, I have fought to be taken seriously for my experience and my knowledge and prove myself beyond the privilege of being a white woman. I have worked hard to be in the position I’m in, and I have done it on my own–without handouts or favors.
The attack on DEI in the US is really upsetting. Looking back to when I was a young bartender coming up in the early 2000s, I didn’t have the same opportunities as my male counterparts, and I didn’t even realize it then. At least there has been some solace at the thought that times had changed and society had progressed–but here we are again. While it’s disappointing, it’s what radicalizes me and keeps me pushing forward without hesitation.
What would be your advice to a woman entering the industry?
Be loud, be unrelenting, be you, learn everything, stay curious, your creativity is magic and unmatched–believe it and let it loose. Don’t take any shit, stand up for yourself, say no without fear of retribution. Take no as an opportunity to redirect. Kindly be ungovernable.
What are you working on now?
I was asked to create a recipe for a coffee liqueur using rum, the coffee, and the panela (piloncillo or unprocessed sugar) from Jose Luis Carrerra for Paranubes. We settled on a recipe for a café de olla liqueur using cinnamon from Oaxaca’s Sierra Norte, vanilla from the Chinantla, chiles from La Cañada, and other local botanicals that will be hitting shelves soon. It has been in the works for almost two years and in discussion for four. I can’t wait for you all to try Paranubes Coffee Liqueur–it’s a love letter to Oaxaca and Mexico.
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