Guests step off the quay and into another latitude at Aguardiente, a venue which may sit inside Marina di Ravenna’s international port but whose soul is firmly anchored in the Caribbean. The room is all warm timber, soft lamplight and measured conversation; a studied blend of Brazilian cachacaria cues and the fretwork charm of a French-Creole house. Jazz hums at a low, respectful volume here where everyone is seated, there’s no standing at the bar, and the mood is intentionally unhurried.

Hospitality at Aguardiente is old-world in the best sense. Guests are ushered to their table, poured water, and welcomed with a petite Canchanchara – an easy nod to Cuban tradition that also sets the tone of heritage first, showboating never. Service follows the cadence of fine dining within the friendliness of a neighbourhood room. If you step out for fresh air, your drink may quietly disappear, not to be remade, but to rest in a freezer, held at peak so dilution pauses while you do.

The bar’s north star is sugarcane. Behind the polished restraint of the cocktail list sits an extraordinary library of around 2,600 bottles spanning clairin, rhum agricole, molasses-based rums and long-lost marques, nearly all open and available by the sip. The team’s philosophy is as rigorous as it is romantic, they celebrate small farmers and artisanal distillers, avoid industrial spirits and let technique serve flavour, not the other way around. Garnishes are minimal to nonexistent by design, showcasing elegance through substance, and a strict zero-waste mindset keeps the frills off the glass and the focus on what’s inside it.

Cocktails hew to Caribbean tradition and its diaspora, think spirit-forward, sugarcane-led constructions balanced with natural acidity rather than citric shortcuts. Prep favours timeless methods such as osmosis infusions, sous-vide and fat-washing and skips the lab-for-lab’s-sake detours. For example, the rotavapor, when used, concentrates aroma rather than redistilling spirits the bar already considers perfect. Ice is its own craft: large clear blocks are cut in-house, glasses are staged cold, and service rhythms are tuned to temperature management as much as storytelling.

That storytelling extends to the bar itself. A small “tasting room” tucked within the Creole-style interior carries miniature artworks tracing two centuries of Antillean rum labels, elsewhere a Haitian mask from Hotel Florita in Jacmel keeps quiet watch. The cocktail list arrives as an A5 hardbound photo journal that’s part travelogue, part reference work with its ongoing volumes documenting islands, people and stills the team has encountered first-hand. It’s less a menu than a passport, and it underlines what makes Aguardiente special: a devotion to place, producers and practice that feels lived, not learned.