In the cacao-growing hills of San Vicente de Chucurí, Colombia, a self-taught winemaker has taken one of the country's most unusual food traditions and poured it into a bottle. Sao Moro, who runs El Cacaotal, has spent months developing a wine made with hormiga culona — the large-bottomed ant that Santander has roasted and eaten for generations.

The ant wine took about a year to perfect and was first shown to the public at fairs in Zapatoca in January 2026. That town was a fitting stage: it's one of the municipalities where eating hormiga culona is most deeply rooted. The ants in question are winged reproductive females of leaf-cutter ants, collected during their brief seasonal mating flight, de-winged and toasted with salt. Moro's version skips the roasting pan and puts them in an alcoholic drink instead.

He's no newcomer to odd ingredients. El Cacaotal started in 2021 as an artisanal ice-cream business, then grew into milkshakes, desserts and wines made from whatever the region grows best. His avocado wine — a genuine technical feat, since the fruit's fat has to be removed before fermentation — became the star, drawing curious visitors from France, Italy, the Netherlands, Mexico and Spain to this town of about 80 kilometres from Bucaramanga. The avocado wine sits at roughly 11.2% alcohol, and by January 2025 small amounts had even been shipped to Spain, the US and Mexico, though wider sales in Colombia were still waiting on regulatory approval.

Wine isn't the only place the ants show up. El Cacaotal also makes chocolates filled with 70% cacao and hormiga culona, plus creams, ice creams and beers. If you want to taste the full range closer to the city, Moro is bringing everything to Bucaramanga in September: BucaraFest, run by the city's Institute of Culture and Tourism, runs September 10–13 at Plaza Cívica Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento and Parque García Rovira.

For travellers, this is a good reason to put Santander's cacao country on the map. The region already offers chocolate farm visits and one of Colombia's most distinctive regional cuisines, and El Cacaotal adds a tasting experience you simply won't find anywhere else — a wine list built from avocado, coffee, cacao and, yes, ants. It's a short detour from Bucaramanga and pairs naturally with the department's outdoor adventure scene. File it under: drink locally, however strange that gets.

Story via Colombia One.