Cheers!

Boada’s Cocktails

Hello and welcome to the first of what I hope to be many interesting blog posts. I hope to keep this platform light and agreeable. Feel free to comment and share your thoughts. I’d love to hear from you. I believe the best way to kick off this blog is with a Cheers!

My favorite cocktail over the past decade has been the venerable Negroni. I always felt this was a drink that exhumed class and elegance. I experienced my first Negroni at Boada’s Cocktails in Barcelona on recommendation from the bow-tied tuxedo donning bartender. Boada’s is a quaint, dimly lit, un-pretentious, timeless, classy (not snooty), quintessential cocktail bar just a skip and a jump from Las Ramblas on Carrer del Tallers. Opened in 1933, it’s known as Barcelona’s oldest cocktail bar.

To call the bartenders at Boada’s mixologists would be disrespectful because the word had not been invented when this place opened. If you refer to yourself as a mixologist, you’re a tortured soul always seeking perfection, constant validation, and the latest garnish for your creations; whereas, the bartenders at Boada’s are there to serve you and leave you in good company to enjoy your drink. Hidden in plain sight at Boada’s Cocktails is an often overlooked letter of praise from the Catalan modern abstract artist Joan Miro on the wall. We

No trip to Barcelona can be considered complete without a trip to Boada’s. A couple of years ago I was adding some money to my mobile phone at the Vodafone kiosk in El Corte Ingles near Plaça Catalunya where the love of my life Rosalia looks down and spots a 10 euro note on the floor. Being the brutally honest woman that she is, she asked all the people in the immediate vicinity if anyone had dropped some money. Since nobody claimed the 10 euros and there was no “Lost and Found” to leave the money we took it to straight to Boada’s and ordered up two Negronis with a healthy tip for the bartender

The Negroni: A Greek Drama in 3 Acts

Aristotle believed that every piece of poetry or drama must have a beginning, middle and end: Protasis, Epitasis, and Catastrophe. This was the three-act structure. The premise for all Greek dramas is that the human condition doesn’t allow us to leave good enough alone. The same applies to cocktails and the Negroni is a firebrand of a drink.

Act 1 – Enter The Negroni

You don’t need to have an advanced degree to make a Negroni. You only need to stir together equal parts Gin, Campari, and Sweet Vermouth in ice and garnish with an orange zest. That is the textbook recipe for the Negroni. Obviously, you can make the argument that one gin is preferable over the other or to use a quality vermouth (if you can find one). You can even substitute Cynar (artichoke aperitif) for Campari without making too many waves.

Act 2 – Enter Stanley Tucci

I saw Stanley Tucci make his wife a Negroni on instagram and the internet applauded. I was happy to see the Negroni under a spotlight for the purpose of bringing people together to enjoy a drink and say a Cheers to each other during the pandemic. What could possibly go wrong with this scene? The stars were all aligned; or, so I thought.

Remember when Stanley Tucci showed us how to make a Negroni and we were like “Ok maybe we’ll get through this quarantine thing” LOL

Kumail Nanjiani

Act 3 – The Revolt

The internet, being the dark and soul sucking place that it can be, took umbrage with Stanley Tucci’s Negroni. The trolls came out to spew their infinite wisdom of correct cocktail making etiquette to make us all woke. Here’s 5 things the trolls had to say about Stanley Tucci’s Negroni:

1. Serving a Negroni “up” – Traditionally, Negronis are served with ice.
2. You don’t shake a Negroni – When it comes to shaking or stirring a cocktail, the prevailing wisdom states that you stir cocktails with spirits and you shake cocktails with citrus. As a spirit-only cocktail, a Negroni should be stirred.
3. Wrong proportions – A Negroni is an equal-parts cocktail. It’s frankly one the aspects of the drink that makes it so magical–that perfect, equal interplay of botanicals, bitter, and sweetness. Tucci suggests proportions of 2-1-1, which favors the gin.
4. If you don’t like gin, you can use vodka. – …and then you can completely miss one of the most important elements of the Negroni–the botanicals. If you use vodka, you’re not drinking a Negroni anymore.
5. Serve in a coupe – One person said, “If I was ever served a Negroni in a coupe, I would send it back and ask for it to be dumped into a tumbler.”
6. Add some juice from the orange wedge garnish – Juice? No. Expressing some of the oils from the peel over the drink? Yes.

Synopsis

No pun intended, but people need to chill. The bartender at Boada’s doesn’t stir the Negroni and he also doesn’t shake it. He rolls the Negroni. This means pouring it from up high through a strainer and catching it down low in his other receptacle aerating the drink. After of few repetitions, he pours the Negroni into a coupe cocktail glass and serves it up with a cherry; not an orange peel. According to the internet trolls, Boada’s is doing it all wrong as well. Unfortunately, I don’t have the audacity to tell a bartender at Boada’s, “You’re doing it all wrong!” They would throw me out on the street and ban me from ordering another drink from them ever again. They would not forget my face and Rosalia would never forgive me if we were banned from Boada’s for being so rude and stupid.

Personally, I don’t care how you make your Negroni as long as you make it tasty and create happiness from it. If you make me one or invite me out for one, I’m going to say thank you. Like the bartenders at Boada’s, Stanley Tucci is all about making the day a little bit better with a cocktail before we have to get back to the daily grind and all its complexities. Why would anyone ever want to make something as simple as mixing Gin, Vermouth, and Campari together so complicated and controversial? Cheers!

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“That’s the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.”

Charles Bukowski