Eating and drinking in Spain is like sitting in front of a large Lazy Susan that is forever spinning, continually returning to you the same splendid, but very focused assortment of Spanish specialties. Here comes sherry, now vermouth, then Jamón ibérico and pan con tomate. Another quarter turn of the wheel and we have Spanish tortilla, olives, empanadas, cider and croquetas. Next arrives a Gin Tonic, patatas bravas, pulpo, Gildas and chips. And now here’s the sherry again, just in time! Because those Gildas and chips were making me thirsty.
During a recent trip, I visited several restaurants and bars in Valladolid, Madrid and Barcelona, and I saw the same things on menus again and again. And I never complained or grew bored. Because, frankly, I love every single one of those things. And Spain does them all extremely well. At a time when low-abv drinks and elevated bar food are global trends, Spain had that all figured out long ago.
That said, the string that tied together my experiences in all three cities was, ironically, an English enterprise: The Punch Room.
The Punch Room(s)
The Punch Room was born inside the Edition hotel in the Fitzrovia neighborhood of London. It arrived with a splash in fall 2013 and quickly became the “it” place. It helped that the bar opened soon after the publication of Punch, a 2010 book by historian David Wondrich that single-handedly turned punch into a thing that serious cocktail bars needed to take seriously. I was in London in June 2014 and heard that The Punch Room was impossible to get into, so I didn’t even try.
Eight years later, I finally experienced the bar. Three times, in three different ways. And not in London; in Spain.
The Punch Room hadn’t stood still the past eight years. The Edition hotel chain has opened four additional locations, in Barcelona, Shanghai, Tampa and Madrid. But my first experience was at a temporary sixth location, a three-day pop-up at FIBAR, a bar show in Valladolid, where I was an invited speaker.
It rained the entire time I was in Valladolid. Sunny Spain? Nah. And, perversely, umbrellas didn’t seem to be a thing any shop in Valladolid sold. Everyone who lived there owned an umbrella, sure, but nobody sold them. And my hotel didn’t have any on hand to lend their guests. (A first in my experience.) I tromped through the streets from the hotel to the convention hall thinking that Lerner and Loewe had had it right all along, vis a vis “the rain in Spain,” etc. (I later solved this weather problem in Madrid, which has several hat stores that date back to the 19th century, including Sombrereria Medrano, where I bought a wide-brimmed, navy blue rain hat.)
By the time I got to the FIBAR hall, soaked to the skin, I wanted nothing more than to sit down with a strong cocktail in a comfortable chair in a warm room. And so I headed straight to pop-up The Punch Room, which was housed in a large wooden box and was the only enclosed drinking experience at the convention. Inside was a roughly 20’ x 20’ wood-paneled facsimile of a Punch Room, with couches, chairs, tables, soft lighting and a small bar in the back. I sunk into an armchair in the corner.
The menu featured punches from the London, Madrid and Barcelona locations. I had two from Madrid: the White Elephant (reposada Tequila, Dewar’s 8YO Caribbean, amaro, mango, bergamot and pineapple cordial) and Absolute Beginners (Cava, Cointreau, bergamot, apricot liqueur and grapefruit liqueur). A man in a vest and tie came over and labeled out the punch from a tall, narrow, silver vessel that looked like a skinny ice bucket. I’ve never seen the like before. The ceremony was delightful. I forgot about the rain.
The Punch Rooms have a challenging row to hoe, because punch is not the hot item it was a decade ago. The cocktail world moves on pretty quickly from one trend to the next and it had hopscotched through several since punch was the latest new-old thing on the block. But The Punch Rooms can’t move on from punch, because punch is what they’re all about. It’s their name, for Pete’s sake.
This has forced the various Punch Rooms to get creative. No Punch Room is the same. The hotel chain has smartly decided that each location should have its own menu and personality. The differences are subtle—all The Punch Rooms are posh and resemble some sort of mash up of a gentlemen’s club and hip night spot—but the differences are there in the menus.
The Madrid Punch Room is the newest, having opened in 2022. I went early and went alone.
Oh, did I mention—don’t go to The Punch Room alone. The Punch Room is about punch, and punch is about sharing. I often go to bars alone; it’s an occupational hazard when you need to keep up with the bar scene and must travel light and swiftly. And The Punch Room can serve you a single serving of any punch on the menu. They’re flexible that way. But it’s more fun to go with at least one other person. Then you can enjoy the camaraderie of drinking the same thing at the same time.
The Madrid Punch Room’s list of punches tips its hat to the once sprawling Spanish empire. It’s quite international in spirit. There are punches made with Pisco, cachaca, Scotch, mezcal, cava, gin, Tequila and rum. I sampled two, including the Srs and Sras, which is made of mezcal, yellow Chartreuse, pineapple, Scotch, green tea, Kraken rum, and lime juice.
While the Madrid bar was just off the lobby, the Barcelona Punch Room was on the second floor of the hotel. The room was dimly lit, the bar was central, there was a beautiful pool table with gold felt; it was very Punch Room-y.
But the menu hit very differently. It was distinctly contemporary. Several punches were based directly on specific modern cocktails, including the Porn Star Martini, Paper Plane, Jungle Bird and Penicillin. That struck me just fine, because, frankly, I like punch, but I love cocktails.
We ordered the Penicillin punch, which was made of Aberfeldy 12YO Whisky, Johnny Walker Black Label Whisky, Ginger Syrup, Sugar Cane Honey and Oolong Tea. That is, apart from the tea, exactly the recipe for the Penicillin. And it did taste exactly like a Penicillin cocktail. That was a bit surprising—one expected some departure from the formula—but I didn’t mind much, because a Penicillin is delicious.
Penicillin(s)
I was not the only one in Spain who loved a Penicillin.
At FIBAR, I was speaking on the subject of modern classic cocktails. Before I arrived, I asked my friend and colleague François Monti, a Belgian cocktail writer and expert who lives in Madrid, which modern classics were popular in Spain. He told me the Penicillin’s popularity was at an all-time high.
As usual, François’ intel was right on the money. Particularly in Barcelona. Within minutes of entering the famous Boadas cocktail bar, I engaged with a customer who was enjoying a Penicillin. Our next stop was around the corner, the Caribbean Club, a small bar—tinier than Boadas even, and Boadas is tiny—founded by the Boadas people in 1974 and now run by the affable Boadas alumni Juanjo Gonzalez. The Penicillin was both on the menu and written in big letters on a small blackboard behind the bar. I did not have a Penicillin, but ordered an El Presidente, a specialty of the house. Mary Kate had a Daiquiri, another speciality.
And then, of course, there was the Penicillin punch served at The Punch Room, which we did have. And this was all experienced in one day. Who’s to say how many bars are regularly selling Penicillins every day in Barcelona?
Monti told me Caribbean Club was his overall favorite cocktail-bar experience in Barcelona. A few people told me that. I saw instantly what they meant upon stepping through the wooden door, which was wedged into a stone wall and looked like the entrance to a wine cellar. Down a few steps was a pie-shaped room that could maybe seat 20. The space narrows into a point as it goes back. It is a bar as Van Gogh might have painted one, all angles seemingly closing in.
To the right were some glassed-in cabinets housing old bar equipment and cocktail books. To the left was a wooden bar with a handful of stools. The ceilings are low, the mood clandestine, the atmosphere cozy and the service personal. Gonzalez was behind the bar. I imagine he is there most nights.
I could have stayed at Caribbean Club indefinitely. Truthfully, I got that feeling at quite a few bars in Spain. The country’s old watering holes are made for lingering, including one I visited the next afternoon.
An Ideal Cocktail Experience
The cocktail bar scene in Barcelona is neatly divided between traditional standard bearers like Boadas Cocktails, Caribbean Club, Tandem and Ideal Cocktail Bar, and modern strivers like Paradiso, Two Schmucks and SIPS. I sampled drinks from a good share from both columns during my visit and, while I admire the earnest histrionics of the younger set, I was most attracted to the old timers. I was comforted by their sense of tradition and the idea that they had held on for so long, a sign that Barcelona—like New Orleans, San Francisco and a few other cities—has a dug-in cocktail culture.
Obviously, Boadas is the big dog among this crew. It is a bar that is internationally known. (I’ll get into my unexpected, two-pronged experience there in the second edition of “Postcards From Spain,” which will run later this month. For now, I’d like to talk about my afternoon visit to Ideal Cocktail Bar.)
I’ll admit I had never heard of Ideal Cocktail Bar before my trip. But it came up quickly on two occasions while I was in Madrid. One friend told me it was his favorite cocktail bar in Barcelona. Another told me not to bother. But because Ideal opened early, when most other bars in Barcelona were still closed, and we had limited hours to visit bars, Ideal made the cut. It helped that it was near one of the Gaudi houses we toured. (One of the wonderful things about Barcelona cocktail culture is that many of the older bars open early. This makes civilized, quiet, day drinking an easy possibility.)
I’m glad the bar accidentally fell into our itinerary. We were only the second patrons at the bar that afternoon. The first had his nose in a newspaper and was waiting for a friend; he showed no signs of leaving. The space, with its dark wood, red decor, L-shaped bar and adjoining lounge room, looked like a New York bar from the 1950s. Scenes from “Mad Men” could have been shot there with no alterations to the room. Even the name of the bar sounds like something someone would have come up with in the first half of the last century. (That it seemed like a 1950s bar checked out; the decor, most recently changed in the late ‘50s, was patterned after an English style of bar, according to the bar’s website.)
Ideal was founded by Antonio Gotarda in 1931, two years before Boadas opened. A framed triple portrait of Antonio Gotarda, his son Josep, and grandson Jose Maria hangs discreetly on the wall. My Negroni (garnished, curiously, with a blueberry, raspberry and orange) was mixed up by a barman who, by the looks of him, had been at the Ideal for many years.
After a new obvious regulars began to show up, however, a second man in business dress appeared behind the bar. From the portrait, I could tell it was an older version of Jose Maria Gotarda. Obviously, these fresh patrons were important enough to be waited on by the boss. Gotarda made all his cocktails from a small wooden cutting board he set up behind the bar. An older gentleman, possibly Josep, was seated by a blazing fire in the fireplace.
The customers made for amusing viewing. There was an older man who was clearly enjoying taking his son and grandson out for a drink. They all had Martinis. The grandson finished his first. An older couple were eventually joined by their daughter and son-in-law. All the while, the mother did her best to keep her aged husband from eating everything and drinking his beer too quickly. Every time he picked up the glass, she plucked it out of his hand and set it down. He didn’t care. He grabbed it again at the next opportunity.
As at all Spanish bars, we were given a little something to eat with our drink. In this case is was a small dish containing a piece of thick bread topped with Iberian ham. The regulars received more elaborate tapas. If we lived in Barcelona, we would have to work our way up to those next-level snacks through regular visits.
Coming up in “Postcards From Spain, Part 2”: Four bars in Madrid and Barcelona; four very different Martinis!
Odds and Ends
Various bars in the Lake George area will be setting up ice bars this winter, including The Gem, which promises the opportunity to cut custom ice cubes for your Old-Fashioned. Dates are Jan. 20 – 22, Jan. 27 – 29… The Modern Classic Cocktails book tour continues with an appearance on Thursday, Jan. 12, at Saba’s Lounge in New Orleans. A $40 ticket includes drinks, snacks, and a signed copy of the book. Neal Bodenheimer, author of the new book Cure, will also be on hand for this double-header book event… Slava, the new Ukranian-themed cocktail bar that opened in the old Pegu Club space in Manhattan last month, has a new chef, Pavlo Servetnyk… The new location of Dog Day Afternoon in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is scheduled to open the weekend of Jan. 27. Mark your calendars for some Chicago hot dogs and Italian beef… Speaking of hot dogs, Robert Sietsema, food writer for Eater NY, assembled a list of New York area hot dog joints. For the most part, we approve (though some entries are in New Jersey)… Chef Britt Rescigno has left the Delaware Avenue Oyster House in Beach Haven, which is a shame because their work there made it one of the few good places to eat on Long Beach Island. We wish them luck in their future endeavors… Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is delightful. Go watch it.
Enjoyed this piece, and enjoyed sharing a couple of meals and drinks with you over here!
Regarding Ideal, important to note that the bar *allegedly* didn't serve cocktails when they opened in 1931, allowing Boadas to claim the title of oldest Barcelona bar still in existence.
Ideal is a storied name for bars in Spain. The first bar to become known for its American drinks in Madrid was called the Ideal Room (circa 1910). It was also the first spot where tango was played in the city. And it had a casino on the first floor. And a doorman who sold cocaine. Oh, to have had one of their famed "vermouth gin cocktails". Other bars called Ideal or with Ideal in their name can be found throughout Spain.
Thanks for the lively description of your visits. Makes me impatient to go back!