Cocktail Snob - quality matters!

Boada's bar
Tallers 1, Barcelona, Spain
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October, 2007
v1.0
Cocktail Snob review by James Teitelbaum

Of course, upon landing in Barcelona, my first order of business was to check out the city's three great Tiki bars - Kahiki, Kahala, and Aloha. All of them are super-cool, but only Kahala comes even close to pouring a decent drink.
Read all about them in Tiki Road Trip (2nd. edition).

With that order of business handled, it was time to check out yet another suggestion from the man known as The Jab - an expert on all things swanky and mid-century. He said to go to Boadas, and thus, I did.
One takes The Jab's suggestions seriously.

There is a tiny street in Barcelona called Tallers that runs from The Rambla (Barcelona's chief tourist neighborhood) to the nearby college area. Tallers is a great shortcut between the two neighborhoods, in fact. Tallers is also filled with a bunch of record stores (the highest concentration of them that I observed in the entire city), and it also seems to be the hangout for the few heavy metal or industrial rocker kids that we spotted in Spain. In fact, you can also zoom from the Rambla to Kahiki by just walking down Tallers, away from the Rambla, and you’ll end up in the college plaza across the street from Kahiki.

At the opposite end of the street from Kahiki, right at the corner of Tallers and Rambla, the very first address on Tallers (yes, that would be “Tallers 1”) is Boadas.

Boadas.
Mmmm...
Boadas....

Boadas was opened in 1933 by Mr. Miguel Boadas Parera (1895 - 1967). The tiny bar seats about eight people, and there is standing room for another twenty. The water closet is literally the size of a closet. There is a painted portrait of Parera on the wall, and tons of other framed memorabilia from his life, going all the way back to the turn of the century. A great backlit mural behind the bar shows people in the 1940s enjoying themselves at Boadas. I wonder what was there before that? We also liked a great painted portrait of Parera shaking a cocktail.

Our first attempt to enter the bar was aborted due to the presence of about forty people in the room (see above, re: room for twenty), and a later mission yielded a cramped seat at the bar after a bit of a wait.

Totally worth it.

The old-school bartenders are all dressed in tux jackets, and can make any traditional cocktail you want. They are all classy but not snooty or condescending.

Each of them has their own charisma and separate personalities, but are first and foremost service minded. One guy, for example, has his own way of shaking the cocktail shaker, and another mixes drinks by pouring the drink back and forth between two shakers: one way above his head and the other by his waist. A third guy has mastered the art of a certain prestidigitation involving liquor bottles. But none of it feels corny or overly showy; these guys just have natural style and don't come off as lame 'Flair' dudes. It’s the real deal. It’s all presented almost as an afterthought, very nonchalant. Boadas is the only place where I have ever actually liked the theatrics, and have not wanted to tell the bartenders to give it a rest and get on with making my damned drink.

Trying to stump them is futile. These guys know every classic drink. They’re like walking bartender’s guides in tux jackets. The drink of the day is always right out of the classic-era cocktail books that I horde; last time I visited Boadas it was the Nelson (bitters, vermouth, and whiskey, with a cherry - like a Manhattan, but with more red vermouth). We also had excellent versions of a Sidecar, a Kir Royale (start with about 1/6 glass full of Creme de Casis and then fill with cava), and a good old Cuba Libre (white Cuban Rum, lemon peel around the edge of the glass, fill with cola). Figured I'd take advantage of the chance to drink some Cuban Rum.

A lot of people were drinking Mojitos; so many that we asked if it was the house drink. No: it is just that the Mojito is as trendy in Spain right now as it is in North America. I don’t drink many Mojitos, but the one at Boadas was damned good, as was their take on the classic American Martini.

By the way, if you ask for a Martini in Spain, you’ll get a glass of Martini brand straight Vermouth and a funny look. They don’t do the Martini as we know it over there - except at Boadas: they’ll know what to do.

We saw a couple of Blue Hawaiis going over the bar, but I didn’t want to even ask about a Mai Tai: I didn’t see any Orgeat, and besides, we’d been to all of the Tiki bars already, and this was the time and the place for Negronis and Martinis, not Mai Tais and Zombies.
And anyway, Blue Hawaii is a shitty drink - you just order it for the novelty value of the color. Once.

All drinks, no matter what you get, are 5.50 Euros (That's about $7.80 US at the moment).
A bargain given the quality of the drinks, and also for the full Boadas experience.
They are not stingy with the pours at Boadas either.

The only thing that sucks about Boadas is that it is 4000 miles from my house.

Highly recommended.

Barcelona Bonuses!
The following reviews are Cocktail Snob 'bonus content'.
These are places that we have checked out and which bear mentioning for one reason or another -- even if the drinks aren't necessarily exceptional (they may range from poor to very good; see individual reviews for specifics).

Las Cuevas del Sorte
Gignas 2, Barcelona, Spain

October, 2007

v1.0
Cocktail Snob review by James Teitelbaum

Here’s a little restaurant in the Gothic Quarter, decorated in a quintessential Barcelona style. Dimly lit and a bit decadent feeling. In their basement one finds a much larger, and much more sparsely decorated cavern of debauchery. This could be Gaudi’s basement, with blue glass tile all along one wall and curved shapes wherever possible. All of the hipsters, musicians, and poets in town seem to come here.

They serve Caipirinhas (sugar, lime, and cachaca - 140 proof brandy made of sugar cane), a drink related to the good old Mojito. Quarter a small lime, muddle the lime pieces and sugar in the bottom of a glass, and add the cachaca and ice. Shake. Didn’t catch the brand we were served, but it came in a wicker-covered bottle (kind of like the Ron Zacapa rum). I am told that Pitu is the best brand to get.
Caipirinha is not to be confused with the Caipirisima (sugar, lime, rum) which ended up tasting like something not too far from my own Pisco Sour recipe, but with rum. Five Euros each.

The local beer is La Cuevas del Sonte.

The bartenders were a hipster black girl and a white guy with white dreadlocks (but he was well dressed and didn’t come off as a hippie). They also have a Mai Tai which comes sorta close to the traditional ingredients (this one is Dark Rum, Light Rum, Cointreau, Amaretto, lime, Grenadine, and orange juice). Lose the Grenadine and OJ, and you have a very expensive proper Mai Tai relative (kinda): the Cointreau and Amaretto are high-dollar replacement for the Triple Sec and Orgeat. Seven Euros.

Definitely a cool place, and the drinks were good to very good.

Bar Marsella
65 St. Pau, Barcelona, Spain

October, 2007

v1.0
Cocktail Snob review by James Teitelbaum

Bar Marsella is on St. Pau, another street right off of the Rambla. Unfortunately, visitors to Marsella will find themselves just getting into the beginnings of a shady neighborhood from the relatively safe confines of the tourist-approved zones of the Rambla. That’s never stopped me before, and certainly didn’t on this trip. Marsella claims to be the oldest bar in Barcelona, and based on the inch-high stacks of dust on the chandelier, I believe it. The substance on the 200-year-old bottles decorating the upper shelves goes beyond dust, beyond patina, and fully crosses over into the category of unidentified sapient life form (deceased). A former creeping fungus, now an endlessly puzzling black crust.
The centuries old woodwork has been barley maintained, the marble bar is cracked. There is a feeling of age here and a slightly sinister edge that recalls Poe or Lovecraft.

This place is known for it’s Absinthe. They keep many snifters of it lined up behind the bar, poured and ready to serve. The bartender serves it with a tiny fork, a bottle of water with a tiny hole punched in the cap, and a sugar cube. The idea is to put the cube on the fork, and drizzle water over it so that the sugar veeeerrry slowly seeps down into the drink, making the licorice-meets-battery-acid-flavored beverage a bit more palatable. Doing it properly results in the sugar-water mixing gently with the absinthe, forming a cloudy mixture. Doing it too quickly makes the sugar water sink to the bottom and fail to mix properly.

Turns out that the beverage we were served is the sans-wormwood variety of Absinthe, or in other words, the same ersatz stuff you can get in North America. No luck getting the real deal, even at Marsella, a bar that is supposedly known for visits from the Green Fairy. We did see some real Absinthe at duty free - for $50 a bottle.

We didn't try any other drinks.

The manager of Marsella is a cranky old American who is friends with some pals of mine who own a bar here in Chicago.

Go for the history and the experience, but don’t expect a warm reception.

Breaking news:
As of middle October, 2007, real Absinthe is legal in seven states, including Illinois.
Time to at least to start using the real stuff in the cocktails that call for it.
Sorry, Absente!

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