“RUSTIC” has come to mean a lot of things as the dawn of the new decade approaches. It can mean just plain and simple, and especially if it was made somewhere rural. These days, however, something having a rustic quality means that it was born somewhere away from the prying hands of the city and modernity, and thus, quite pure.

Ken Alonso wouldn’t call himself Proudly Promdi (this is the actual business name) if he didn’t understand that. Mr. Alonso, who calls himself Chief Promdi Officer, takes tapuy and bugnay wine from the provinces up north and makes it his mission to place them on shelves at some of Manila’s finest bars, and even those of the world.

Mr. Alonso took his spirits to Three Little Pigs, a speakeasy in Pasig, on Nov. 20 and presented four cocktails (BusinessWorld had two) made of bugnay wine and tapuy. In case you’re wondering, bugnay is the same as bignay; it’s just a matter of a difference in dialects. Bignay is a fruit from the Antidesma bunius tree, grown over Southeast Asia and some parts of Australia. The juice is quite tart, Mr. Alonso recalls, and so some makers add a bit of sugar during the fermentation process to make the wine. Tapuy, on the other hand, is local rice wine, and Mr. Alonso’s fare are made from sticky rice. He sources this from women winemakers in the north, paying above-market prices. His background in graphic design helps him to repackage the product and sell it in the city as a premier product. Proudly Promdi also operates as a mobile bar, and one can avail of their services during parties for a bit of Filipino flair.

Now, back to the cocktails: the Mestiza was made from bignay wine, mango juice, lemon, basil infused gin, syrup, and rose water. Sans the mango juice, this one tasted very clean, like drinking the smell of old-fashioned soap. Next came TMFT (To My Favorite Tita), made of bignay wine, coconut rum, orange juice, lemon juice, syrup, and soda water. It’s a fitting tribute, because he remembers that his love affair with tapuy started when his aunt got everybody drunk on it during her 25th wedding anniversary. BusinessWorld did not sample the tapuy cocktails and instead had it on the rocks (which according to Mr. Alonso, is perfectly fine).

“Nahihiya sila na ibenta namin (they’re embarrassed that we are selling it),” said Mr. Alonso of his sources. He’s about to change all that. “They still have that perception that they (their products, and maybe by extension, them) don’t deserve to be here.”

“We’re here to say, be proud that it’s made by you.”

There’s a bit of hitch on the road here — the products that Mr. Alonso sources are still in the process of getting Food and Drug Administration approval. The process takes building a formalized and clean facility to ensure consistency, and, yes, he’s aware of that alcohol poisoning incident from another company. “Hopefully by next year, these will be exportable products.”

It won’t take away from the rustic quality we’re coming to love: “We’re not going to commercialize it on a grand scale like the big suppliers. In a way, you’re trying to make it a premium product.

Mr. Alonso then began to touch on his childhood, which was the source of the company’s name, Proudly Promdi. While he grew up in the city (he has a boys’ school accent), he said that he was a bit embarrassed growing up that his parents were not city folk. But then, “I realized growing up, why should you be hiya (embarrassed)? There’s so many things that you should be proud of.” — Joseph L. Garcia

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