Dobleve

Last night we ended up at a cocktail bar here in Granada called Verdi with friends; we hadn’t been there before. It was a unique place. The interior is baroque in style but has a slight feel that you might be in the living room of an older devout catholic person rather than a bar, but it works.

More interesting than that is what happens once you sit down. The night we were there was quiet, unusually so for a Spanish bar – normally you can barely hear the person next to you but in Verdi you could hear a pin drop. The owner/bartender came over to our table and we asked if he had a menu of cocktails – we have our usual favorites but I always like to see if a bar has any specialties.

Not only is there no menu but you also don’t really order drinks so much as discuss what your ideal cocktail might be like. The bartender began the questioning, interrogating us as to what kind and brand of liquor we liked, what type of drinks we enjoy. Then he left and made our drinks; I was hopeful, after all if you take that kind of trouble you must be really good at making cocktails. I don’t really know what I got, I had been trying to answer the questions in such a way as to end up with a French 75 but what I got was more of a spritzer with a candied cherry. It was ok but not great.

The concept though is a bold one – trying to pick the perfect cocktail, but ultimately I think it can’t win with people who really love cocktails; its just too hard to make a really good one and guessing what someone wants isn’t likely to work.

For us our favorite is still Bemelmans, but here in Granada I think we’ll stick to Papalagi.