Aguas Chicas Pays Homage to Their Culture with Innovative Drinks

Sisters Victoria Medrano and Sophie Ochoa are transforming the world of aguas frescas with Aguas Chicas, a joint venture that puts a twist on the traditional drinks.

The sisters wanted to start a business and tie it to their Mexican roots, but didn’t know where to start. Upon visiting various markets and pop-ups, they saw how much people could do from under a canopy, which changed their initial thought of needing a brick-and-mortar to succeed.

“We came up with the idea to do aguas frescas because it's a drink we grew up with ... then it just grew to so many different ideas and out-of-the-box flavors like nontraditional, not your grandma's type of drink,” Medrano says.

Growing up in East Dallas, they witnessed gentrification firsthand and saw their favorite fruteria spots close. It made them feel a bit responsible to continue sharing that culture, which wasn’t obligatory, but it felt nice to continue sharing those traditional snacks.

They take pride in their culture and the creativity they bring to their drinks. Much effort goes into perfecting drink recipes and presentation designs, which can take months of planning and back-and-forth.

“It's literally one of those things where I'll text her at 2 o'clock in the morning saying I have an idea on this drink,” Medrano says. “We just want to make it to where somebody can come and have a full experience in a cup.”

Aguas Chicas let us try their menu of inventive drinks and savory snacks at a Cinco de Mayo event in Plano.

They offer aguas frescas in pina (pineapple), jamaica (hibiscus) and their most popular dragon fruit for $8 each. They present them similarly to how the drinks come in Mexico, in a plastic bag, but to meet food safety criteria, they use pouches.

“We wanted to pay homage to that because in Mexico City, we saw everybody with the aguas frescas inside of like a Ziploc bag and that's what we wanted to bring here, but it comes down to health regulations and health codes, so when we saw this, we were just like, ‘Pouches have been around forever,’ but we mainly did it to pay homage, and it's a great way for our business to stand out too,” Medrano says.

Their agua de jamaica didn’t carry the usual tartness found at many other places, but that's because they purposely add oranges and cinnamon to bring down the tartness of the flower, which overall makes it more refreshing.

The agua de pina was nearly perfect. They credit the taste to their talents in picking fruit and letting the fruit speak for itself in the drink instead of heavy-handedly adding sugar.

“We depend on the fruit being sweet, so if the pina is already nice and sweet, why add sugar to it, why take away the natural sweetness of this beautiful fruit that's been grown, and same thing with the jamaica?” Medrano says.

Their dragon fruit agua was very good as well, even though the flavor is not as naturally strong as the others. It was even better mixed with Topo Chico, an enhancement known as the Topo Chica ($8), which can be made with any of the aguas frescas.

The concoction resulted in a collaboration with Topo Chico after a Texas marketing manager stumbled upon their creation at a pop-up event.

“She saw people walking around with all these colorful Topo Chicos, and was like, ‘What is this drink?’ and everybody was pointing them to our drink, and she was just like, ‘I'm so impressed with the creativity. I'm so impressed with the taste,’” Medrano says.

Of course, they also have horchata, which is usually a fall menu drink. Right now, they have a horchata matcha, or The ChaCha ($8). Like the others, it wasn't too sweet, and the matcha created a perfect flavor mix for the cinnamon horchata.

They also blend a bit of Asian culture with their Chica Chica Boba ($8) drink, which features their pina agua mixed with chamoy, Tajin and strawberry popping boba; overall, it was the perfect blend of savory and sweet.

For snacks, they offer classic elote ($6) and a hot Cheetos version ($8). We tried the former for the first time, and now we understand why it's so popular.

The Hot Chica Chips y Pickles are hot Cheetos layered with Best Maid dill pickles, chamoy and Tajin. Biting into it was like a kick in the face, but in the best way possible; it’ll make your mouth water even after finishing it.

“It's made with our favorite pickles, Best Maid pickles, which are a Texas family brand, so those are the best pickles, and we grew up on those pickles, from our paletero man. He was so popular and so well-loved in the neighborhood, and we just carried that with us to our adulthood,” Ochoa says.

Medrano and Ochoa want to keep expanding their business, and their next stop is the State Fair of Texas. They have already applied to be vendors and are awaiting an answer by the end of the month, but this is only a step in their five-year plan.

If that doesn't work out, they will look into bottling their Topo Chica drink and getting it onto shelves and in stores. Their ultimate goal is to have a concession stand at the AT&T Stadium, and they have been in contact with Legends Hospitality, hoping they can be a part of the food and beverage concessionaires.

​​”The money that Latinos are bringing to the U.S., how they're raising economic value across Dallas, across Texas, across the U.S.; we're making moves; we're out here making noise; we're out here being innovative in the food and beverage world and in everything,” Medrano says. “It's just nice to see the support from our community, our customers, it keeps us on our feet, being creative to develop more and more.”