Martini cocktails, martini bars and martini culture
Let's start from this: the Sips bar was elected best bar of the world in 2023, and scored third both in 2022 and 2024. So, even if rankings such as the World 50 best bars are sometimes disappointing, my expectations were rather high. Now, the Sips is a fantastic bar, both for the concept - …
The Ubeda is another bar inBarcelona which takes gintonics very seriously. Unfortunately, they don't do martinis, so why is the bar in this blog? Well, we have some reasons for this. First, the Ubeda, opened in 2006, is possibly the first specialised gintonic bar which opened in town and in Spain. Second, it is a …
The "gin wave" that has submerged Spain is difficult to explain (we might devote an article to this soon...), but it has its own benefits. For example, in Barcelona you can find a few bars which are devoted - I mean religiously devoted - to the spirit of our heart. Of all these, the Bobby …
The Boadas is a legendary place. It is said to be the oldest cocktail bar in Spain, and the place where Hemingway used to drink his mojitos when in the Catalan capital. Legends apart, the story is the following: the founder of this bar, Miguel Boadas, established it in 1933, bringing to Europe his bartendering …
Known as the best gin&tonic cocktail bar in Barcelona, the XIX Bar (also known as the Diecinueve Bar, as the name spells in Latin numbers) is an unmissable spot in the city. The choice of Gins is extraordinary (I counted more than 40!), that can be combined with four different tonics, to be served in …
Let's be clear, the Dry Martini is not only one of the temples of the Martini in the world, but one of my VERY top bars on the planet. Opened in 1978 by famous catalan bartender Pedro Carbonell and later brought to world fame by Javier de las Muelas, the "Martineria", as natives call it, …
The Martini Hour 