{"id":239402,"date":"2025-09-19T17:11:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T17:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/239402\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T17:11:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T17:11:12","slug":"andrew-de-la-torre-la-pulga-spirits-fort-worth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/239402\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew de la Torre La Pulga Spirits Fort Worth"},"content":{"rendered":"

La Pulga Spirits<\/a> founder and managing partner\u00a0Andrew de la Torre may have grown up in Arlington, but Fort Worth captured him when he arrived at TCU.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ll never leave Fort Worth,\u201d he says, while sitting comfortably at the La Pulga Spirits\u2019 Office at 5300 Pershing Ave. \u201cMost people here are honest, sincere\u2026 It\u2019s a great home base.\u201d<\/p>\n

For de la Torre, College was a time of exploration. He switched majors, piecing together a communications degree while figuring out what he wanted to do.<\/p>\n

Even before graduation, de la Torre was learning lessons in discipline and grit. By day he worked construction, mastering trades like sheetrock, carpentry, and tile. By night he waited tables at the legendary Joe T. Garcia\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad taught me at a very young age that humility is the essence of greatness \u2014 and nothing taught me more humility than being a server,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

He quickly applied those lessons to the business world. By 2005, he was flipping houses and learning to manage construction projects \u2014 experiences that gave him the skills and capital to pursue larger ventures.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cI was doing construction in the mornings and waiting tables at night,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI did that for six years until I opened my first nightclub in downtown Fort Worth.\u201d<\/p>\n

That nightclub was Embargo, a 7,000-square-foot Cuban-themed venue in Fort Worth\u2019s southeastern downtown on the corner of Eighth and Calhoun. The club quickly became a cultural hub, known for hand-crafted mojitos, salsa nights, and late-night tacos.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople freaked out about the food,\u201d de la Torre remembers.<\/p>\n

Beyond the food, de la Torre always tried to lead by example in any capacity he could at the club.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would scrub in and do everything myself \u2014 wash dishes, and take out the trash. I\u2019d never ask anyone to do something I wouldn\u2019t do,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

In 2009, de la Torre was brought on by a private equity firm to manage Peque\u00f1o Mexico, the 12-acre open-air market in Fort Worth\u2019s Northside that had been a staple of the Latin community for decades. Known locally as a \u2018Pulga,\u2019 Spanish for flea, the market features bars, live concerts, and more than 60 tenants. Over the years, it has survived multiple development threats, including proposals for apartments and big-box stores, preserving a vibrant cultural hub for the Mexican community<\/p>\n

Embargo continued to operate until 2015, while de la Torre balanced both ventures.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s rough around the edges,\u201d he says of the North Side flea market\u2019s look. \u201cBut that\u2019s part of what makes it cool. The people out there work very hard, and there\u2019s just a great sense of community.\u201d<\/p>\n

That community became the inspiration for La Pulga Spirits, which de la Torre co-founded with Sarah Castillo and Stephen Slaughter. The company produces additive-free tequila, mezcal, and sotol and is now available in eight states across the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t name this brand after the people at the market and then charge them a crazy amount for it,\u201d de la Torre says about the spirit\u2019s price point. \u201cWe wanted to create something high-quality, approachable, and true to the culture that inspired it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Running a spirits company is not just about bottles; it\u2019s about relationships. De la Torre and his team travel regularly to Mexico to visit distilleries in San Luis Potos\u00ed, Chihuahua, and the Highlands of Jalisco.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cSomebody from our team is down there maybe once a month, talking to distillers, breaking bread with them,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re partners, but we\u2019re mainly friends at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

He recounts planting seeds, drinking mezcal, and even riding horses on the distillery fields.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne day while I was out there working in the fields, I asked for a pair of gloves,\u201d he opined. \u201cThe workers looked at me and said, \u2018What do you need those for?\u2019. By the end of the day, the foreman threw me a pair of gloves, stating, \u2018You\u2019ve earned them.\u2019 I was pleased to know I had earned their respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even with a thriving portfolio of ventures, de la Torre measures success differently.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cMy greatest accomplishments are being a husband and father,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Yet in Fort Worth, he is known for a relentless work ethic, humility, and loyalty to his community. Early mornings on rooftops with Empire Commercial Roofing, afternoons promoting La Pulga Spirits, and weekends at Peque\u00f1o Mexico all reflect a life built on hands-on engagement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt connects me to my heritage,\u201d he says of places like the open-air market. \u201cThere\u2019s a pride in where you come from and what you\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"La Pulga Spirits founder and managing partner\u00a0Andrew de la Torre may have grown up in Arlington, but Fort…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":239403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,45216,2105,7371,7372,11875,9726,13813,96338,10763,9727,358,7453,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-239402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-entrepreneur","10":"tag-food-and-drink","11":"tag-fort-worth","12":"tag-fortworth","13":"tag-heritage","14":"tag-la-pulga","15":"tag-people-of-influence","16":"tag-profile","17":"tag-stephen-montoya","18":"tag-tequila","19":"tag-texas","20":"tag-top-story","21":"tag-tx","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115232079001177146","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}