In Houston, we brag about our diversity. We’re proud to be made up of all different cultures, and we’re lucky it bleeds into our food scene. No matter where you are in the city, you’re bound to find a restaurant or bar that represents your roots. And now, with new River Oaks spot Botonica, Houstonians can explore Latin American culture like never before.  

Owner Alexis Mijares previously made a name for herself honing several bars’ cocktail programs, as well as with her own pop-ups, the Cursed Cauldron and Jingle Bell Bar. Now she has a permanent space to showcase her unapologetically authentic experience as a Mexican American through the art of cocktails.

“Botonica is inspired by my heritage, being Mexican American,” she says. “It’s also inspired by the culmination of my entire career. I wanted to make a space that was the best of both worlds.” 

At Botonica, Mijares’s mission is to put Latin excellence at the forefront of conversations, through drinks that educate guests on the vital role her culture played in the history of cocktails. To help her do this, she’s created three different menus: the house menu, la huella liquida (the liquid footprint), and el camino de la margarita.  

“First and foremost, I am a storyteller,” she says. “Through a bar, we can tell a very beautiful liquid story.”

The house menu is crafted with what Mijares says are thoughtful options for all customers. You’ll find boozy stirred drinks, citrusy and refreshing takes, and even some alcohol-free options. The opening menu threads familiarity with unique Latin spirits that Houstonians may not know existed.

Take the Desert Dove, for example, which is as if a Moscow mule and a Paloma had a baby. It combines Singani 63—a Bolivian brandy—with Ketel One, St. Germain, guava, grapefruit, lemon, and ginger beer. The Desert Dove introduces Houstonians to the South American brandy, while also using a mix of recognizable ingredients. Another is the Chamuyera, which combines Zacapa rum with more familiar ingredients like coffee, banana, amaro, dulce de leche, and coconut.

But Mijares warns that guests shouldn’t walk into Botonica always expecting the same house menu. The plan is to switch it about twice a year—one for spring and summer, another for fall and winter.

And who doesn’t love a good margarita? Botonica has created essentially a menu-within-a-menu with el camino de la margarita, exploring the drink’s evolution with nine different cocktails. It starts with a brandy daisy, then moves into some classic recipes, and ends with the Millionaire’s Margarita. The final drink is made with Patrón Gran Burdeos, Grand Marnier 100 Cuvee, lime, and gold leaf.

La huella liquida is the largest menu of the three. It takes guests on a journey of Latin drinks, all the way back to the 1600s. It’s a collection of over 50 classic cocktails that Mijares and her staff have pinpointed as vital to telling the story of Latin America’s influence on the drinks. While it contains familiar cocktails like a Paloma and mojito, it also includes the Pisco sour, which is made with Pisco, a Peruvian spirit distilled from grape juice, as well as lemon, lime, sugar, and an egg white.

“We’re really excited to have [the customer] explore, because I know we’re going to give people some of their new favorites,” Mijares says.

To accurately piece together each menu, Mijares says she spent about six months researching. You could find her deep in a book, on the internet researching away, or reaching out to the hospitality industry for help. She jokes that because of all the work she did with menu creation, the training material for her team resembles a dissertation. But it’s ultimately her love letter to the culture.

Botonica’s food menu similarly blends comfort with pan-Latin inspiration. Take the caviar and chicharrones—Mijares says the former is a cocktail bar staple, but to give it a Latin touch, they serve it with chicharrones and masa blinis. Other dishes to look forward to include the rajas con crema—roasted poblano and onion with Oaxacan cream sauce—and mini Sonoran dogs, which come wrapped in bacon and topped with black beans, salsa verde, crema, and pico de gallo.

“Something that I think lacks in bars is when you think of going somewhere, you either think I'm going to go somewhere for really good food and then I can get a drink, or I can go get a really good drink, and I might be able to get some food.” Mijares says. “I want this to be a space where people think, OK, we're gonna get really good drinks and really good food.”

And the storytelling doesn’t stop with the drinks and food. Mijares, alongside her pop-up partner Angelique Cook-Cavazos, created a space that blends gothic, moody, and vintage elements with greenery and plants; they call the design “tropic-goth.” And Mijares says the bar’s design emulates everything that the name Botonica represents. She jokes that when naming the bar, people were asking if she knew how to spell, but she promises that it’s all intentional because it’s actually a play on the word “botanica.” The second half of the word is changed to include “tonic,” as a pun on its purpose as a cocktail bar.

“You get the dark mysticism vibe of a botanica, but we are selling drinks, so there’s like that double entendre in there,” she says. “That’s kind of where the name [came from] and that also then really helped us pinpoint the design vision [of] the space.”

As Botonica gets settled into its River Oaks neighborhood, the plan is to add additional programming like live jazz, bossa nova, and burlesque, as well as Tarot and Tini Tuesday. And although the concept is new to Houston, Mijares says this project has been on her mind for nearly seven years.

Mijares first got into the bartending space when she moved to Austin in 2013. She jokes that she comes from very humble beginnings—her first job was in a shot bar on Sixth Street. She then went on to work at several bars there like the Roosevelt Room, Midnight Cowboy, and the Mexican restaurant Suerte.

With a decade under her belt in Austin, and some time here and there spent in Tulum, Mijares moved to Houston in 2021 to help reopen Alba Huerta’s bar Julep. Her work helped the bar win the James Beard Award for Outstanding Bar in 2022. That same year, she also earned it a spot on the inaugural 50 Best Bars in North America list.

Eventually, Mijares decided it was time for her to do her own thing and branched out into the pop-up space with some festive-themed bars. In 2023, she debuted the Cursed Cauldron, which mixed witchcraft with cocktails. Its success allowed her to not only bring it back last year but also open up a Christmas-themed pop-up dubbed Jingle Bell Bar. Both were held in the former Aero Cocktail Co., which is now Botonica’s home.

After seeing the success of Mijares’s concepts, coupled with an ending lease, Aero’s owners approached her to see if she’d like to take over the lease and move into a permanent space. Of course, it was a no-brainer—the opportunity meant she was finally seeing her dream come to fruition.

And if you’re upset about no longer having the pop-ups, Mijares says she isn’t ready to say goodbye to those, either—Botonica will now act as a permanent home to both.

“We want to give people the full experience,” she says.