| TASTE TEST | ▼ Café ▼ FORT LAUDERDALE CRAFT FOOD TOURS TURNS FIVE Craft Food Tours, a walking food tour com- pany in Delray Beach, pays homage to a love of culinary experiences and cuisine and was founded by two foodies. Matt Guidice and Anthony Guzman met in 2014 through mutual friends and bonded over a shared love of exploring new restau- rants. On a 2016 trip to Austin, the idea of Craft Food Tours came to life when Guzman took a food tour of the Texas city. “The ability to taste multiple restaurants in a few short hours under one set price was intriguing, along with the fun facts portion of the tour,” he tells New Times. The duo then enrolled in Food Tour Pros, a food tour training institute based in Chicago, where they received guidance on creating their own business, including developing marketing plans and enlisting restaurants to participate. The two share responsibilities, with Guz- man spearheading sales and marketing while Guidice focuses on finances and operations. Like many companies tied to the hospital- ity industry, COVID-19 hit the business hard. With no tourism and restaurant dining rooms closed, Craft Food Tours temporarily closed in March 2020 and pivoted to driving busi- ness to their restaurant partners who’d switched to takeout. They used email and so- cial media to promote eating locally, posting Instagram stories on daily specials, sending out weekly newsletters, and buying takeout themselves at least five times a week to sup- port the restaurant community. The strategy paid off. With minimal over- head costs, the business was able to resume tours in early 2021, emerging with only a small loss. During the first six months after relaunch, the tours were private-only groups of ten or fewer people. Mandatory masks, individual servings, a full refund policy, flexible book- ing/cancellation, and other policies were en- forced as a precaution. With South Florida seeing a tourism boom, the little food tour company found it- self expanding to include Fort Lauderdale tours in August 2021. “Our goal has always been to replicate the success of our tours in Delray. The first Craft Food Tour was a deep dive into Delray’s vi- brant food culture and a way to support the city’s mom-and-pop shops, a concept that we knew would work well in other South Florida towns,” says Guzman, adding, “We always had Fort Lauderdale at the top of our expan- sion list and knew it would be the next big op- portunity to scale.” The Fort Lauderdale food tours begin in front of the Stranahan House, then navigate through the restaurants of Las Olas. The partners are also eyeing Boca Raton. 14 14 Right now, they’re dipping their toes in the water by planning private tours. The goal, says Guzman, is to expand to most cities in Broward and Palm Beach counties. Photo courtesy of Koda Creatives Guzman says the company aims to con- nect and educate through food. “Our motto is to ‘create relationships around food tourism,’ so what’s next for us is to continue building our community,” he adds. “We’re getting prepared to take Craft Food Tours to new heights and will hopefully have a team of twenty-plus one day operating our concept in multiple cities. We want to be able to help more and more local restaurants get their word out to curious locals and trav- elers about what it means to eat local.” Craft Food Tours. craftfoodtours.com. Tick- ets cost $60 to $85. NATALYA JONES ▼ MIAMI-DADE CASALÚ HARD SELTZER PAYS HOMAGE TO LATINO CULTURE made out of vodka and tequila and simply wondering why none were made with rum, which is the spirit of choice in many Latino countries, including Venezuela, where Ri- cardo is from,” Gonzalez says. During the summer of 2020, Sucre de- Anthony Guzman, cofounder of Craft Food Tours cided to create his own hard seltzer — one he felt would be a catalyst for sharing his culture with others. Using añejo rum as a base, he ex- perimented with different recipes using a So- daStream to whip up his take on a rum-based, carbonated drink. While Sucre was perfecting his rum- What do you get when three friends put their heads together to create the perfect hard selt- zer for Miami? You get Casalú, a mashup of the words “THIS BRAND IS ALL ABOUT HOW WE EXPRESS OUR LATINONESS.” “casa” and “salú” — a simple way of saying, “Welcome to our home.” Launched in Miami earlier this month, the new rum-based hard seltzer is doing just that: inviting others to share Latino cul- ture. The story of Casalú begins with cofounders Ricardo Sucre, Gabriel Gonza- lez, and Gustavo Darquea, who met while at- tending North Carolina State University. Throughout college, the three friends would often share memories of home and family over their drink of choice: rum. They didn’t realize it at the time, but they were on their way to creating Miami’s first Latino- owned hard seltzer. “Ricardo was always the one looking for any option that wasn’t beer,” Gonzalez tells New Times. “When the seltzer boom started, he found his drink.” But there were still a few problems for Su- cre, who says most hard seltzers were missing that “Latino” vibe. “The tipping point was finding seltzers based hard seltzer, Gonzalez began exploring ways to communicate the idea of Latin culture authentically. Through his love of reggaeton, he created “Tropicalation,” a playlist of Latin favorites that would later become a pillar for Casalú. To that soundtrack, an early homemade version of Casalú was born: a simple marriage of aged dark rum, lemon juice, organic agave, and carbonated water that pays homage to the trio’s heritage and culture while inviting others to share in that experience. Casalú’s first offering, “Limón,” is de- scribed as “crisp and balanced” with the per- fect amount of buzz. The 5.9 percent ABV beverage sells for $13 for a four-pack of 12-ounce cans. This month, Casalú became available in select bars, restaurants, and stores across Mi- ami, including Brickell Wine Bank, Aficiona- dos, Miami Dade Liquors, and Vintage Liquors’ midtown and Brickell locations. The drink also ships to 20 states direct-to-con- sumer via DrinkCasalu.com. “We created a refreshing and crisp seltzer that both the new generation of drinkers and our grandparents can enjoy together,” Gonza- lez says. “This brand is all about how we ex- press our Latinoness, and we took that job very seriously. It is a daunting task to put all of us under one umbrella because the reality is we are all very different. But this drink re- minded Ricardo, myself, and Gustavo of something we would proudly serve our grandparents and our friends alike.” “Casalú’ is more than a hard seltzer. Think of it as the next Red Bull, but Latino,” Sucre sums up. NICOLE DANNA MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 APRIL 21-27, 2022 NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS |miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com miaminewtimes.com
