On this episode of the Bourbon Friday Show, we had the opportunity to talk with Junior Lara, host of the Auténtico Podcast.

Serving the Latinx Community

Community building is hard.

And it can be especially challenging when you have a different cultural, ethnic, or lingual background than your peers.

Lara felt the same way when he moved to St. Louis from New York City in 2003.

“I felt that I needed to be able to relate to someone, someone that understood me and understood my challenges, my background, and maybe find someone that can mentor me,” said Lara.

Keeping that same feeling in mind, Lara and Gabriela Ramírez-Arellano recently began the Auténtico Podcast.

With its intentional use of English, Spanish, and ‘Spanglish’, the podcast caters to the Latinx members of the business professional community in St. Louis and beyond. During the podcast they give advice, talk about overcoming challenges, and share stories that directly relate to being a Latinx professional.

“We wanted to do something different—not just another business podcast that you can put on a shelf. We want actually for people to listen to it, relate to it, to laugh, to learn and to develop.”

If you’re interested in following the Auténtico Podcast, it can be found on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and you can keep up with their updates at https://www.autenticopodcast.com/ or on their Facebook page.

Bourbon Innovation

As always, the Bourbon Friday team does their best to choose a fitting drink for the occasion.

The drink of choice was J.R. Revelry Bourbon Whiskey. This Bourbon was born out of a dream by man named Jesus Ricardo Tapia. Like Lara, he is an immigrant from Latin America, in this case Peru.

For years Tapia had the dream to someday own a whiskey distillery. After getting his business degree and working for several spirit brands, Tapia finally made his dream a reality in 2006 when he started his own company, and has since released several different J.R. Revelry products.