Above: Christina Mercado with Tim Croizat
The USA’s Christina Mercado has been named the Altos Tequila Tahona Society Competition champion of 2025, securing a US$50,000 grant to develop her ‘revolutionary’ sugar alternative.
The bartender and drinks consultant from Newport, Rhode Island, beat sustainability and wellness-focused projects from 10 other global competitors to win the final round of the Tahona Society Competition, held in Guadalajara last week.
Her project, an emerging sustainable syrup brand called C-Sweet Syrups, is made using natural sweeteners and fibres. It caught the attention of judges including Altos and Tahona Society co-founder Dre Masso, not only for its ability to help bartenders and consumers make healthier choices, but for its ‘viable business potential’.
Masso said: “Christina has created a really decent alternative to a sweetening agent that’s made in a natural, crafted way and that’s far better than anything else we’re using. This is without a doubt part of a movement toward improved sugars, and has the potential to make her a lot of money. There were a few people in the competition that stood out but ideally you want to be doing something you really love, and you can see she’s really in love with this project.”
The Tahona Society Competition was founded in 2016 as a more impactful alternative to traditional cocktail competitions, helping bartenders make a difference to their local communities through the funding and development of sustainability and wellness-led projects.
Finalists from around the world were offered three months’ coaching by competition partner Agenda28 and Harvard Innovation Labs to refine their project and develop business skills, before presenting their final pitch to a panel of judges, including Masso, House of Tequila managing director Tim Croizat, Lush Life founder Lindsey Johnson, and coach and angel investor, Lara Zimmerman.
Judges felt the quality of projects competing in the 2025 final were so high, that this year they decided to award grants to the top three, while pledging on-going coaching support for all finalists.
While Mercado secured the grand prize of US$50,000 and the on-going support of Altos owner Pernod Ricard, second place went to Colombia’s Christina Botero, who received US$5,000 and continued support from the organisation.
Botero’s Shaking Lives project provides hospitality training for young people in Chile and Colombia, helping them forge sustainable careers and lifting them out of poverty.
Third place went to Mexico’s own Audrey Hands and Lucia Gonzalez for their Brindemos Bienestar initiative that promotes safety and well-being in hospitality through an anonymous feedback system. The duo will receive continued professional coaching and support to develop their project.
“The top three were really close, so each in their own right could have been a winner,” Masso added.
Ultimately it was the widespread global impact and business potential of C-Sweet Syrups that clinched the win for Mercado.
“I want to revolutionise how we approach modifiers behind the bar,” she explained. “I want us to get back control over our sugar intake on a daily basis holistically as humans, but the first point of attack for me is behind the bar.
“We use a lot of sugar – it’s in all our liqueurs, it’s in simple syrups, it’s our go-to for infusions, but it doesn’t have to be and I want to teach people that there are other things out there that we can use that are better for us. Better on our body, better for our futures and better for the environment.”
Working with a food scientist and leaning on her experience as a former pastry chef, Mercado spent several years developing the perfect recipe for C-Sweet Syrups that delivers on taste and contains ingredients derived from 100% sustainable sources.
Using a combination of inulin, a prebiotic fibre derived from three plants – agave, chicory and Jerusalem artichoke, combined with stevia and monk fruit, C-Sweet contains fewer calories and is a lower GI alternative to sugar.
When used in a classic Margarita, C-Sweet’s orange cordial reduces the amount of sugar in each serve by 13g, reducing the drink’s calories from 256 to 151.
Mercado began work on C-Sweet several years ago when her mother was diagnosed with cancer and placed on a low-sugar diet by doctors. “Back then I was still a pastry chef and I started to rework recipes for food using sugar alternatives that she could have,” Mercado said. “I didn’t fully think about it in beverages until I moved into bartending and started to question why we aren’t using these alternatives in our drinks.”
Mercado intends to put the US$50,000 Tahona Society Competition grant toward expanding production capabilities to roll C-Sweet out to bars and producers for use in cocktails, RTDs and liqueurs.
However Pernod Ricard has expressed interest in working with Mercado and her invention more closely, perhaps taking a stake in the product itself.
Daniela Via, Altos’ VP marketing and S&R who also co-founded the competition, said: “We want to help Christina develop her product. We have a lot of resources internally that can help her, and if we can build that first step as a brand with this ingredient, that would be fantastic; we want to benefit from this amazing idea.”
Since its founding, the now biennial Tahona Society Competition has supported five additional winners in developing their own sustainability initiatives, starting with former Lyanness bartender Kelsey Ramage’s Trash Tiki in 2016.
Jenny Teasdale, director of the Green Apple Foundation, the 2023 winner from Cartagena, Colombia, used her prize to purchase a machine to process used glass bottles into sand for repurposing in construction and water filtration projects around the city. The organisation is also exploring ways to utilise the sand in the protection and conservation of surrounding mangroves and reefs.
The Altos Tahona Society Competition will return in 2027.
