Colombia drinks more interestingly than its reputation suggests. The beers go a long way past the cheap tropical lager, with a fast-growing craft scene. The country’s two signature spirits, aguardiente and rum, carry serious regional identity and a few internationally recognized premium labels. And there are a handful of older traditional drinks, some genuinely pre-Columbian, that still turn up in the right places. Here is the practical guide: what to order, what each region claims as its own, and what is actually worth seeking out.
Table of Contents
Beer
The modern Colombian beer industry traces back to 1889, when a German immigrant named Leo S. Kopp founded the Bavaria brewery in Bogotá. Bavaria spent the next century absorbing or outcompeting most of its rivals to become Colombia’s overwhelmingly dominant brewer, and it is now owned by AB InBev, the world’s largest beer company. Almost every beer you see at a typical Colombian shop belongs to that group. The craft scene, which only really took off in the 2010s, is the counterweight, and there are now well over 150 microbreweries operating around the country.
The Everyday Lagers
Águila is the country’s everyday lager, light, crisp, and tied to football, beaches, and any occasion involving more than three people. It is the closest thing Colombia has to a national beer.
Club Colombia is the slight upgrade, sold in three styles: Dorada (golden), Roja (red), and Negra (dark). It is the safer choice if Águila feels too thin.
Poker is another widespread light lager and Águila’s main rival in many parts of the country.
Costeña is the coast’s beer, particularly common around Cartagena and Barranquilla, and light enough for the heat.
Pilsen is the Antioquian classic, the everyday lager of Medellín and Antioquia, and the one most paisas will reach for over Águila out of pure regional loyalty.
These all sit at roughly 4-5% ABV, cost similar prices, and the differences are mostly about regional and personal preference. On a tighter budget you will also see cheaper Bavaria labels like Bahía and the imported German lager Brunonia. The differences at this price tier are mostly the design of the can.
Craft
Bogotá Beer Company (BBC) is the biggest name in Colombian craft, with brewpubs in cities around the country and a broad range that includes lagers, IPAs, stouts, and witbiers. The chain is now owned by AB InBev, which Colombian beer purists will mention.
3 Cordilleras, based in Medellín, is the city’s best-known craft brewery, with a taproom that runs tours and live music. Their range covers a wheat ale, a pale ale, an amber, a sweet stout, and a few rotating styles.
Apóstol sticks closely to traditional German beers, Helles, Weizen, Märzen, Bock, with the kind of strict adherence that makes German visitors nod approvingly.
Nevada Cervecería is up in Minca, on a coffee farm in the Sierra Nevada foothills, and brews unusual beers using local ingredients, including a pale ale made with coca leaves and a coffee stout.
20Mission Cerveza, based at a bar in Medellín’s Ciudad del Río, has a broad lineup of accessible craft beers and is probably the best entry point for anyone new to the scene.
Other names worth knowing if you see them on tap: Chelarte (Bogotá), La Milagrosa, Moonshine Brewery, Cervecería Libre, and Cervecería Gigante in Cali. The full list runs much longer.
Aguardiente
Aguardiente is Colombia’s signature spirit and the one drink that says more about a region than any other. Loosely pronounced “gwa-ren-tay,” and called guaro to its friends, it is a sugarcane spirit infused with anise, which gives it a sharp licorice edge. Most bottles run 24 to 29% ABV, lower than vodka or whiskey, and are served in small shot glasses straight from the freezer. Each region has its own state-owned brand, and locals are loyal in ways that get teasing at best.
Aguardiente Antioqueño is the most famous, produced by the Fábrica de Licores de Antioquia (FLA) in Medellín, with three versions: the red label (with sugar), the blue (sugar-free), and the green (lower alcohol).
Aguardiente Cristal is the Caldas equivalent, dominant across the coffee-growing region.
Aguardiente Néctar rules in Bogotá and surrounding Cundinamarca, with Azul (sugar-free) and Rojo (sweet) versions.
Aguardiente Blanco del Valle is Valle del Cauca’s, lighter and a bit softer, and often used in cocktails.
Aguardiente Tapa Roja is the Tolima choice, strong on traditional anise flavor.
Aguardiente Nariño comes from the deep south, often used in hervido, the hot fruit drink served on cold mountain nights.
Aguardiente Llanero is the version from Los Llanos, the eastern grasslands, which is enough of a different cultural region that the spirit reflects it.
If you are at a Colombian table and unsure what to order, ask for whichever the region you are in produces. That is the correct answer.
Rum
Colombian rum, made from sugarcane like aguardiente but without the anise and properly aged, has been getting serious international attention over the past decade. Most use the solera method, blending stocks of different ages, and are aged in oak. They tend to run sweeter than Caribbean rums and often carry notes of coffee and vanilla.
Ron Medellín and Ron Viejo de Caldas are the two long-running standards. Ron Medellín is produced by the same Antioquia distillery that makes Aguardiente Antioqueño, and comes in 3, 5, 8, and 12-year versions. Ron Viejo de Caldas, made by the Industria Licorera de Caldas, is the most widely consumed rum in the country and the safe everyday choice.
Dictador, from Cartagena, is the country’s most famous premium rum internationally. It is made from sugarcane honey rather than molasses and aged using the solera system, with bottlings ranging up to 20 years.
La Hechicera, blended in Barranquilla from rums aged 12 to 21 years, is arguably Colombia’s most awarded rum and the one to seek out for a quiet evening of sipping. The profile leans toward tobacco, coffee, and orange peel.
There are smaller regional rums too, including Ron Santafé and Ron Tres Esquinas, which you tend to find in their home regions rather than nationally. As with aguardiente, regional pride is part of the package.
Cocktails
Colombian cocktails fall into rough categories: warming spiced drinks for cold Andean nights, refreshing tropical things for the coast, and a couple of classics that fit neither category.
Refajo is the everyday Colombian classic, a chilled mix of light lager (usually Águila or Poker) and Colombiana, a domestic soft drink the color of cream soda that tastes like nothing else. Stronger versions add aguardiente. It is what you drink at a barbecue.
Canelazo is the warming counter to refajo: water boiled with cinnamon sticks and panela (unrefined cane sugar), spiked with aguardiente. Served hot in mugs. Andean, evening, festival.
Hervido, especially in Nariño, runs in the same mood but built around hot fruit juice, sugar, and aguardiente, served in glasses garnished with fruit slices in the cold mountain air.
Sabajón is the Christmas drink, a Colombian eggnog of milk, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, and aguardiente or rum, served chilled with a dusting of cinnamon on top.
Caspiroleta is the same general idea but warm, made with milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and a spirit, cooked gently until creamy.
Coco Loco is the cocktail you will see along the Caribbean coast, often served right inside a coconut: rum, coconut water and cream, and a splash of tropical fruit juice.
Lulada is properly a non-alcoholic drink, a Cali specialty made from lulo (a tart Andean fruit), lime, sugar, and crushed ice, and it is wonderful on a hot day. The alcoholic version with vodka or aguardiente has become more common, but the original is a refresco, not a cocktail.
Michelada, in Colombia, is far simpler than the Mexican version: a beer, a salt-rimmed glass, fresh lime, ice. No tomato juice, no hot sauce, no clamato. Refreshing, fast.
Traditional and Indigenous Drinks
A few older drinks predate the colonial era and still turn up, particularly in indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities and at festivals.
Chicha is the oldest of them, a lightly fermented corn drink with roots in the pre-Columbian Muisca and other indigenous cultures of the Andes. It was a staple long before Bavaria existed, and although it has largely been displaced by beer (with some government nudging in the early 20th century), you can still find proper chicha in Bogotá’s La Perseverancia neighborhood, where a handful of chicherías keep the tradition going.
Masato is a lightly fermented rice drink, sweet and mildly alcoholic, common in Tolima and Huila, often spiced with cloves and cinnamon. It turns up at religious processions and rural festivals.
Guarapo is sugarcane juice, sometimes fermented into a mildly alcoholic version, and is still made fresh on small farms across the country.
Viche deserves a paragraph of its own. It is an artisanal sugarcane spirit produced by Afro-Colombian communities along the Pacific coast, particularly in Chocó and around Buenaventura, with a strong, distinctive flavor and centuries of tradition behind it. For most of the 20th century it was treated as informal and largely outside the legal market. In 2021 the Colombian government formally recognized viche and its derived liqueurs as cultural and collective patrimony of the country’s Pacific Afro-Colombian communities, which both protected the tradition and opened the door to viche appearing on serious cocktail menus in Bogotá and Medellín. If you see it, try it.
