A drink with your father. Do it.
March 19 is celebrated in much of the civilized world father's Day —that is, the festivity of Saint Joseph, carpenter and Nazarene; and the point is that It has been celebrated for not so long: specifically since 1951 , as a result of the radio promotion campaign of Galerías Preciados (suck that one, El Corte Inglés). How beautiful is love, right?
In Valencia —we are very like that— we put it together very brown on the aforementioned day 19 and we took advantage of the "carpenter" daddy's roll to burn things. That's right: we are that kind of town that gets together once a year to burn giant faults up to 35 meters high. the world is on fire . And we know it, that's why we burn things.
But to what we are going, the day of the old man. In Germany, more donkeys than a plow, they call it Herrentag and it consists of climb a mountain with a beer cart, pure finesse . And so on up to five different dates in the rest of the world but here, we like to go shopping more than a fool a pencil, we save the ballot buying a tie or a perfume not very expensive at some service vips, on the way to family food.
In Tablecloth and knife we propose something new: go to bars with your father . Recover (because you have lost it) that intimate and sacred moment of that distant early adolescence, when you still sat down to talk about things. When you still shared with him your doubts, your successes and some fear; that tired old man who hardly looks you in the eye today he has spent his fucking life working for you and what less than sharing a couple of glasses of whiskey of malt on the bar of a good bar. You and him, two glasses and a barman.
We propose to send all those e-mails with promotions of cocktail sets, cookbooks and razors to the recycle bin. Of runner's errands and gift cards for a weekend in a rural house that he will never go to. "Get dressed. I'll pick you up at 8, dad" and you pick it up (yes, you pick it up) and plant it on the counter of one of these wonderful bars:
**SCOTCH BAR (HOTEL HESPERIA)**
Looking at the Castellana and next to the best club in Madrid: Santceloni. Halfway between the chic of Punk Bach and the most stale classicism of Milford we have this fantastic proposal just a stone's throw from the Golden Mile. Shops and drinks, is there anything better?
The place does not give rise to absurd modernities or lounge music: it only woods, mahogany and toasted . As God commands. And on the menu a selection of more than 70 malt whiskeys (Macallan Millesime Special, Lagavullin 16 years or Port Ellen Cask Strengths) or the new jewel of Macallan, the signature whiskey 1824 Series (created by Bob Dalgarno) .
The Scotch Bar at the Hesperia Hotel
milford.
My house in Madrid. Moral and aesthetic beacon of the most rancid and decadent Madrid . Good people, pijerío with tradition and shoes with tassels. Old school and retrograde to say enough. Milford is the best. It may not be the best bar (it's not) nor does it have the widest range of whiskeys (it doesn't) nor is it the most comfortable (it isn't) nor is it fashionable (it will never be) but even so, you see, There is no bar in the world like the Milford.
OHLA BOUTIQUE BAR
Probably my main cocktail bar in Barcelona and it is partly thanks to Massimo La Rocca, barman, genius, figure and winner of the prestigious Diageo World Class Bartender of the Year. We forgive you for being a "designer" bar. (creepy concept) because the whiskey list is fantastic and because, hell, a bar either is or isn't. And this is it.
Ohla Boutique Bar, Barcelona
DRY MARTINI
Diego Cabrera Y Javier de las Muelas They are probably the two most important bartenders of the last decade, and the fact is that their cocktail bars are always the slums where "you have to be", the bars that have stolen the scepter from Diego and Le Cock in the beoda imagery of the good man. I hope they are the spearhead of a new golden age of Spanish mixology , like those years of Chicote, Balmoral and Boadas. Hopefully we remember these years as the silver age of cocktails, the beautiful years when gin and tonics and cocktails swept away beer and Tinto de Verano on Dos de Mayo. I wish.
Plus? In Madrid the Museum Bar del Palace, Cock and Columbus Cocktail Bar, in Seville Premier Nervión and the Alfonso XII Americano, in Barcelona the Banker Bar del Mandarín, Milano or Ideal, in Valencia Clandestino or the H Club of the Westin, in San Sebastián the Dickens (kneel before Joaquín) and in Bilbao Sir Winston Churchill Pub.
A drink with your father. Do it . If you think about it, you can earn so much...
Your father, you and a barman