12 Grapes, New Intentions & Cafecito: Kicking Off 2026 the Latino Way

All right. Happy New Year. Feliz año. Welcome back to another episode of cafecito e croqueta is brought to you by stay tranquilo and achenco Feliz año is we're here first recording of the year 2026 man crazy 2026. It's crazy how fast the years have flown how fast last year flew. Yeah. Stuff that we did earlier in the year of 2025 we thought it was like super recently but now it's the you know it's the new year it's time for you know new changes maybe you know new new habits to be built or to just keep building on what you build off in 2025. So absolutely. Happy New Year brother. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Antonio. Happy New Year to all of you. Back there. Happy New Year everyone. Yeah we're glad to be back. We're gonna before we kick it off and get into some of our intentions and our goals for 2025 or 2026. I want to talk about a tradition that happens on New Year's Eve and we were kind of having a dialogue before we were recording but the 12 grapes before New Year's I'm assuming we're assuming that it's a very Latino. Yes. I was at the bar in St. Augustine and we were the only ones there with our ziplocks full of grapes but I got to ask you do you do the grapes before the countdown of New Year's or do you do it after 12 o'clock strikes and then eat your grapes. So I think like at least for me and my family there's no like rhyme or reason. It's just a matter of like sometimes the grapes are handed out way before and maybe you like pop a couple but like there's no law of like you need to graze before the countdown starts because like I mean we're we're kind of a dream for like to knock down 12 grapes in 12 seconds and just be like as insane like 12. I think that's a crazy thing. Honestly I don't think there's a rhyme or reason just like you know if you eat some before the New Year after the New Year I mean just finish the grape. I feel like there's got to be a little bit of a rhyme or reason though. I mean you're setting your intentions right you're trying to be as clear and precise with what you intend to you know wish for and have into 2026. Historically I've always done them after 12 o'clock strikes right. When we were doing our grapes this year everyone's like oh we got to do them before and I'm like well if you do them before then you're not maybe the purpose but it's like that's you're eating them in 2025. So it's like those wishes are going to be stuck in 2025. We did have champagne also. We did have champagne. Yeah they brought us some champagne which is a crazy mix grapes and champagne. I mean they kind of like go together. They do. So Val actually did something which was pretty close. He saved the last grape put it in the champagne drank your champagne and then ate the last grape. I've seen that. I've seen putting grapes in champagne. What's your strategy when you're eating the grapes like do you go like is it like a month by month thing. Do you have like a list of priorities like I just I just you just but do you don't set like an intention. I guess like I that's the whole point. You know what you're not just eating 12 grapes. It's all great. I know I get that. I don't know man. I guess like what I do my intentions at least with the grapes I think my intentions are more like just like a me myself thing. Of course with the grapes I guess I kind of symbolize it when I'm eating my grapes. I'm not thinking about like you know oh no my intentions are like kind of like me personally like said before and like kind of afterwards but I don't I don't like categorize each grape as like an intention. Oh wow. Okay. No I go very in depth into every which maybe that's just not something that like at least my family like the grapes is just more like a tradition like you eat your grapes for years. Okay got you. So it wasn't like something like oh like it's not like when you blanch your candle make a wish. No that's how it is for me. Yeah. So like maybe like every grape is like a essentially like a birthday wish. You know. And this New Year's actually weird because this is my first New Year's away right in Miami. Yeah. Super worth it but it was but there's definitely no grapes being eaten in Dallas Texas. I'll tell you that there's no grapes being eaten in Dallas Texas. Yeah I'm very curious to like know how many people actually do the grape thing. I say I grown up around I've seen grapes. It's almost like crazy. I see one grape in the champagne. That's it. Just someone does the one grape. I've seen that in some other places like a grape in the champagne. Maybe that's more common but the whole 12 grapes and a little a little baggy. Yeah. Like I think that's just honestly that's just something that yeah I mean every New Year's I basically spent in Miami so I don't know you know New Year's traditions everywhere else. Yeah. No I use very intentional on every single one of those grapes but I am very curious to hear what you guys have to think about grapes. Do you do them. Do you not do them. Do you do them before New Year's. Do you do them after strikes 12 and do you do intentions because I thought for sure I mean everyone around the table was like it was crazy like everyone was sitting there and like ice clothes like one grape and then like really thinking about the next one. It took me like seven minutes to really go through all the great power to you. Yeah. So I've never I've honestly I've never approached like that. Like obviously you make your intentions but I've never like my intentions to my grapes. Interesting. Other grapes just more curious now. If I had other grapes maybe just like you know some good luck you know the cleanse you know like whatever it is you cleanse with the grapes. Add some massive grapes this year though. I do the green ones. Yeah. Yeah. Usually I mean fuck that's a whole other debate now. Do you do red grapes. There. There. There. You're going to be. I mean like I said grapes or something Latinos do like I said. Yeah. I think everyone like I think the same way everyone kind of celebrates you know Christmas differently like especially you know to one of Latinos I feel like people approach maybe New Year's differently. Yeah. Like maybe not every Latino culture does the grapes. Maybe that's just a Cuban thing. No no because those fans Colombian and they do it. Maybe then maybe it's a full Latino thing. I think it's a full maybe each culture approaches it differently how they approach the grapes. Maybe some of them are like hey each group needs to be an intention for us there's so much going on and like freaking champagne. I don't know everyone by the time I get around saying happy new year to everyone at the house. Right. Exactly. Then you for you to use by that time like which was the whole you need the grapes which was the whole rationale of doing it before is because once 12 o'clock strikes you're there saying happy New Year's to everyone you know everyone's celebrating and then the grapes kind of get forgotten and then all of a sudden it's 1230 and you're like shit I got six more grapes say you know it's annoying. I feel like this happens probably more than often now it's like no one's actually keeping track and then like they find out like oh shit New Year's at 30 seconds and they start throwing grapes though and like there's been times where like I'm like yo guys it's 1159 and they're like oh what time is it how many seconds it's a second how many seconds because especially if you're not in front of the TV the TV gives you the countdown right which there's like this whole thing of like New York not exactly being on time yeah I would actually turn it so that's interesting point right the concept of New Year's like on the dot at the time is crazy right because you have time change you know time zones across the whole globe right so it's like in China they they celebrated New Year I don't know when they say yeah I brought the new year but Australia they're doing it and then yeah you're in Dallas and you're doing it after I am so like I celebrated New Year's a whole hour before before you did and then if you're in California we did it three hours before if you're in Hawaii six hours before you know it's like yeah yeah so the phenomenon of like time is kind of crazy because there's definitely like okay it's New Year's we celebrated but like they didn't you haven't even celebrated yeah yeah by the time like by the time I was in I was probably asleep already by the time you were celebrating New Year's no it was only an hour difference as I'm saying I was basically in bed by like one o'clock really yeah I was a quick new year's see in Dallas man everything by by two o'clock it's everyone go home yeah everyone go home yeah St. Augustine same same yeah I mean Miami's the only place that I got everyone's party till five o'clock in the morning I mean I'm sure space is still open I'm sure I'm sure space is still banging right now I'm sure they're out there like they're fifth DJ set yeah um but not man I mean like New Year's like I said much like Christmas is just you know bringing it with the family you know you appreciate all the good memories from you know the year prior you know you appreciate it you bring you know all the people you're close with and then obviously whoever you know people with their own families you text them but hey man grateful for you guys and then they obviously look forward to 2026 absolutely so so talk to me what what's the goals the intentions for 2026 I think my big intention is self-improvement just improving myself you know some habits you know being more intentional how I approach my days you know whether it's in the morning whether it's you know getting my morning workouts and even though I'm not a morning person you know changing habits you know instead of being lazy not doing my hair you know I got this beautiful head of hair you know wake up a little earlier do my hair pain and low you know do a little I did a bit I used to blow a dryer today wow wow holy moly I know we're all we've got hair dryer pooch for 2026 yeah hair dryer pooch um and then obviously you know it's always just you know trying to be better you know trying to be a better a better you know son a better brother you know a better friend uh and you know I think for me it's a lot of self-reflection of like what I can improve on as you know what I can you know obviously you know whether it's you know here at Seattle what can I do better how can I be better to you how can be very fun don't you want just you know overall just elevating myself you know bringing out you know the true best version of myself because I don't think I've reached you know my you know true best version yet so that's that's my intention I just you know self-improvement and just working on myself and you know becoming better you know for everyone around me love that that's awesome yeah oh yeah what about you brother um man I got a lot of intentions um but you know I think there's always room to improve right I think we have to always strive to improve that's always like the goal right because if you get if you settle and you get complacent with who you are and where you're at you're never really going to evolve so definitely you know self-improvement I think I did a really good job you know getting in the gym taking care of my health but I I want to evolve that even more I'm doing dry January so no drinking in January I want to consume less alcohol in 2026 overall that's a big goal of mine you know not doing some not that I drink a lot but you know it's very easy to say hey like on a Wednesday night with the boys and now all of a sudden you're just down two pitchers right like cutting those type of things out just taking care of my overall health you know more cardio I want to start running again that was something that I didn't do a ton of I want to start meditating more in the mornings doing more of like routines right like these little things that you kind of push on the back burner right and they are essential to to just your overall being so those are things that I want to start incorporating again in my in my everyday habits and and just like I would say health like deeper deeper health I'm healthy but I want to get even healthier I want to get my mind sharper I want to get my energy higher you know all these things that we all want to do but we have to do our part you know to accomplish that so that's big obviously the business as a whole continue to grow that continue to to evolve and and make it better and and bigger and continue to grow that and then you know outside of that I don't know I I think for me it's just like I want to do more like community service that's a huge huge huge thing for me and you know just whatever I can to do little things you know food drives you know whatever whatever it is just being able to give back I think is is another big one for me and then we talked about I want a nicotine like I got into Zins and I want to get off of them not to say like anything's happening but I just know like talking about like that health component at the end of the day it's not like the healthiest thing for you so if there's things that you could do to to again make yourself healthier and make yourself sharper get rid of the vices exactly the vices you know not relying on you know stuff like that and I'm looking here at my laptop and I have the Zin reward store tab somehow safe to my so close to the Tesla so close to the Tesla yeah I think everyone can approach it differently but you know I think it's always about improving who you are and improving on you know what you've built you know in 2025 and you know moving forward man because unfortunately time slows down for nobody so if you're not adjusting to the times you're not you know evolving yourself as time goes on you know you're gonna get left behind so I think it's important for everyone to really just lock in and you know move forward because you know I that's one of my favorite things that time slows down yeah I keep ticking for sure and I think that's interesting too right like how do you actually slow down time a little bit right because it's somebody I would forget who I was talking to it was like this weekend or something and they brought up something interesting like the phenomenon was like as you get older it feels like time goes faster and faster and like when you're a kid time so slow right because when you're a kid everything's new to you right so like you're processing everything way slower because you're like soaking in this like new experience so I think to really slow down time is like actually taking time to like disconnect which was huge for me at the end of the year I really wanted to just like turn it off a little bit you know just slow it down yeah just slow it down and I think we don't need to wait till the end of the year to slow it down like we get fine moments where hey you know what we need to find the balance yeah turn it down a little bit because it's only going to create that longevity right you don't want to burn out you don't want to kill yourself in the process right I think it's like a such a control just a control over you know your life and you know being in control of you know your surroundings and being controlled like your your work-life balance I think that's where you know how you can really slow down time is like when you're in control and you're you know ahead of the pace you know you can like you know I'm going to get my work done here so I can you know take off two days you know you're in control of you know the future and you kind of you know essentially doing your part to make sure you have those days where you can relax and that's where a lot of it comes in just you know being in control and I think that's you know where I want to improve is you know taking more control of my life and you know not letting stuff sneak up on me because when stuff is in the example on you and then you're working and then by the time you notice it's one o'clock in the morning and then you're like oh damn I'm gonna wake up and then you're in fast forward but I think you know being in control and you know being ahead of the ahead of you know I guess ahead of paces the best way to say it is yeah definitely where I'm looking to like it I like it it's a pace bro I like it well on to 2026 big year ahead let us know what your goals and resolutions are this year and yeah we got exciting stuff coming into 2026 2026 is only gonna get bigger the only thing that's not changing in 2026 is we're still drinking our coffee seat that's not going anywhere it's still maybe maybe throwing a different kind of thing or just taking ham on always ham on first but you know why not venture out into some other stuff as long as not bakalaw like leave those leave those at the store the bakalaw what's the is that the fish yeah yeah those are it's like white no bueno I'm not a huge fan leave those at the store leave those on the counter but everything else is welcome all other everything else is welcome as always thank you guys for tuning in and we will see you guys on the next one