The new golden age of cocktails in Barcelona

Jerónimo Vaquero's hands are large, reminiscent of those of a bricklayer or a boxer due to their robustness.

He laughs when the comment is made.

He has shaken and shaken the cocktail shaker for more than five decades behind the bar of the legendary Boadas and has known no other trade.

“This has been my whole life.

I started working in the summer of 1971, when I was 14 years old”, he confesses while downing an Adonis at aperitif time, the drink that became popular more than a century ago by mixing sherry and vermouth.

Jerónimo Vaquero has just retired, although he is still at the foot of the canyon managing the cocktail bar next to the Ramblas that he inherited when Maria Dolors Boadas died.

The Boadas bar, opened in 1933 by Miquel Boadas, is the temple that keeps the cocktail tradition in Barcelona.

It was the first place

Simone Caporale visited a decade ago, when she landed in the city.

“I wanted to meet him as he was.

I left the bags and there I went.

I also visited the Dry Martini, by Javier de las Muelas.

There was a magnet that attracted me”, he comments while serving a Mosaic, a crystal clear, refreshing and deep drink inspired by Gaudí and made with a base of pisco, rosewood and tonic.

From left to right, 14 de la Rosa's Poet's Dream, Two Schmuks' Topinambur cocktail and Paradiso's Vulcano.

Vicens Gimenez (© Vicens Gimenez)

Caporale, born in northern Italy, was one of those responsible for the great success of London's Artesian bar almost a decade ago.

That place, located in the Langham Hotel, whose origins date back to 1865, received for four years in a row the highest award as the best in the world.

His inspiration, that of Barcelona and his own experience over many years are what give value and color to Sips, the concept of a bar without a bar that he has erected on Calle de Muntaner together with Marc Álvarez, another heavyweight of good drinking in the Catalan capital, in command for seven years of the liquid part of the Albert Adrià restaurants.

The place is overflowing mid-afternoon on a Wednesday.

“When we opened, in the summer of 2021, people warned me to be careful, that Barcelona was not like London.

And luckily it's not like London, here there is much more curiosity and passion”, exclaims Caporale, who also has much to celebrate.

Her Sips entered The World's 50 Best Bars list last year at number 37.

They and some of the drinks they have devised full of fantasy and innovation, such as their Compressed —with clarified peach, jasmine, whiskey and palo cortado— or their version of the Dry Martini —served in two steps, with a controlled temperature of minus 10 degrees —, have made Barcelona one of the cocktail capitals.

The latest selection made by The World's 50 Best Bars has placed neighborhoods like Gràcia or El Born in its spotlight.

Barcelona, ​​for the first time, is in the top of the cities where it is best to drink on the planet.

At the level of New York, London or Shanghai, and only surpassed by the pinnacle of luxury: Singapore.

And it has done so with very different venues, some of them alternative, as is the case with Two Schmucks, and others like Paradiso, a venue opened in 2016 and which was number three in the last ranking.

A night at Paradiso, with Giacomo Giannotti's team at full throttle behind his undulating wood and marble bar.

Vicens Gimenez (© Vicens Gimenez)

“I didn't know anything”, remembers Giacomo Giannotti, the imagination that is in charge of Paradiso.

“We traveled to London, which was where the gala for the best bars was held, because we thought we would occupy a position similar to that of other years.

But when he started to go down the list and get to 10th place, I thought there was something wrong.

Giannotti devises and presents cups on volcanoes, ice cream cones and melting clouds.

In the morning, before everything starts in his bar, the neighborhood already moves to his tune.

Much of the blame lies with the workshop of his wife, Margarita Sader, on a parallel street, and the recent laboratory that he has just opened, also very close to the original premises, where he gives free rein to his elaborations and ideas.

Among them there are sustainability congresses, like the one he brought in April to some of the most important gurus of global liquid recycling.

At night, only an endless queue indicates that something is happening in an almost camouflaged space.

Behind a hidden door, everything makes sense.

A wave-shaped counter that surrounds the clientele, a tropical garden on the ceiling and walls and an incredible hubbub welcome the visitor.

“Here we serve 600 cocktails every night.

Each one with a different service”, they indicate from the Paradiso counter, while they move to the rhythm of ice, bottles and the odd crunch.

A few hours earlier, the atmosphere at Two Schmucks is not much different.

Here those who officiate, between the chipped walls of a room in the Raval, are Juliette Larrouy and Pom Modeste, two French women who have conquered international critics by positioning themselves as the eleventh best bar in the world.

They, who come from the world of gastronomy, have made the difficult easy: round drinks with clear flavors, with unconventional ingredients, which are already among the best in the city.

And a nice deal, probably the most important part.

"The most important quality of a good

is hospitality and service," says Larrouy, who serves five people at the bar and brings out creations such as a Garam Sour —with bourbon, a mixture of Indian spices, lemon juice,

and peanut cordial—or a Butternut Splash—with smoked butter, Scotch whiskey, and soda.

Interior of Two Schmucks.

in the popular neighborhood of El Raval, with Pom Modeste preparing a cocktail.

Vicens Gimenez (© Vicens Gimenez)

Juliette and Pom aren't the only women to come up with goblets.

At his side is a selection of significant names that are revolutionizing quality drinking in hotels, old taverns and underground spaces in Barcelona.

This is the case of Ginevra Castagnoli, at the head of the Ellas Empowerment project and the creative Punch Room, the bar dedicated to punches at the Edition hotel, which reproduces Penicilins and Porn Stars: "I want to be an example of entrepreneurship for the sector," says Castagnoli .

There is also Raiza Carrera, who at 27 years old masterfully dominates the restless Libertine lounge, at Casa Bonay: “When I arrived there weren't as many bars as there are now”.

And Núria Miret, Juanjo González's right-hand man at the Caribbean Club and creator of some of the best daiquiris and Presidentes that can be savored in Spain.

The search for the best cocktails concludes at 14 De La Rosa, the intimate café owned by the British Dean Shury, to which the latest Spanish list of Top Cocktail Bars awarded three stars in Madrid Fusión: the highest award.

“It is a neighborhood cocktail bar of the highest level.

And when there is space for these premises, it is always a good sign”, reflects François Monti, president of the jury of the list and author of the recent

, published by Abalon Books.

Shury plays with familiar mixes like a Gimlet, a French 75 or an Espresso Martini.

Without neglecting slight touches and innovations that improve and elevate them.

It is a unique and familiar place to return to.

Like many of the other cocktail bars that populate the corners and alleys of a Barcelona that is reborn after the pandemic: Especiarium, Gopnik, Collage, Sauvage, Dr. Stravinsky, Solange, Marlowe… “For me, the current scene is in a very exciting point, there have been some excellent openings recently and that is driving everyone to do better, ”concludes the Londoner.