Catalan Gins, and a lovely "ranci" Martini

We found a delightful, friendly wine/liquor store a couple blocks away, Art de Vins. When some friends visited from the US, we wanted to do a tasting of three Catalan red wines, and three Catalan gins. It's the gins we're writing about here!

First, we tried the gins straight -- no ice or mixers -- cold from the fridge. Nut London Dry Gin was pretty assertive; it was good, but didn't rock my world. Next up, Gin Mare from the coast: this had a more enjoyable profile for sipping, the winner so far. Finally, we had Mahón gin made on the island of Majorca, which had an enticing herbal/citrus profile, and became our favorite sipper.

The rest of the evening was spent indulging in Gin Tonics, which I make with a 1-to-1 ratio of gin-to-tonic so we can taste the gin.  We felt the Nut gin was the best for this, due to its assertiveness: it didn't get lost in the Schweppes Tonic.

Later in the week, we chose the Mahón for sipping.  When we returned to Art de Vins to restock gin for both G&Ts and sippers, we were very surprised at the cost: the Nut was significantly more expensive than the Mahón; at this price point, we could use Mahón for mixed drinks. 

We wanted a drink to showcase the Mahón, and a Martini is about as gin-forward as you can get. We thought that mixing with one of the omnipresent dark vermuts served as aperitifs around here would be too heavy. Irene hit on using Vi Ranci, a very traditional oxidized wine that we buy in bulk from the same shop: a ratio of 4-to-1 has a good balance.

This was a real win: the aromatics of the gin came through, as well as the unusual nutty taste of the wine; it's fairly dry and needs no garnish. We've dubbed it the "Rancini", and it pairs really well with a stunning sunset -- salud!

Putting down roots on Casanova

A few months ago, I realized that if we didn't commit to a date to move, we'd never leave the comfortable house we designed and lived in for 20 years in Arlington Virginia. More critically, if our Barcelona tenant chose to leave, we'd have to find another renter -- for another year at least -- or drop everything and move without any preparation: we couldn't let him drive our timeline, so I picked the first of September as our date to arrive.  We spent the next months arranging international movers, property managers for the Arlington house, and giving away as much as we could to friends and locals: our Arlington house is 3x the size of the flat in Barcelona, so we really had to downsize. 

We flew to Barcelona with a one-way ticket and arrived August 31st 2022. Our renter had left the flat in good shape, and it was clear he loved our terrace as much as we did, filling it with plants and a giant umbrella, which he graciously left.  

We've only been here a couple full days now, but we spend as much time as we can here; wouldn't you?

I love waking up and staring at Montjuic and its castle, which was used as a brutal prison during the Franco years (we can even see the cable cars that will take you to the top), and then at the MNAC building housing the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, and the visually adjacent Torre Calatrava radio tower built for the 1992 Olympics. They look a lot more impressive than my photos can capture.

It's the end of summer, and it gets to about 30C (86F), and the sun beats in the glass doors -- the entire face of the flat is glass. We have white-out curtains inside and end up having to close them from about noon to 5pm or so this time of year. But at night, we leave all the glass doors open as it cools down to about 22C (70F).

In the evening, we've been graced by dramatic storms and colorful sunsets. We've been cleaning up the terrace and reorganizing it for our needs -- cooking and eating -- but have a long way to go. We love having a glass of vermouth or three as the sun sets.

When we bought the place in 2019, we were delighted to see the MNAC building lights up a fan of illumination, and they continue to do it. We haven't been here long enough to tell, but it seems to be Thursday to Sunday, promptly at 9pm; we can hear the church bells toll in the Gothic quarter and see them flicker up to power; it's a treat.

We've been too busy meeting with lawyers about completing our residency requirements, and with banks to get our accounts in order to do any of our usual obsessive cooking, but we'll get there. We've had to make do with dozens of cafes within 2 blocks of us, all serving very good quality food, at very favorable prices; especially if when paired with a bottle of Spanish wine and some Vermut Casero (house-made). More on those explorations later, but we've not had a bad meal yet.

(Hmm, looks like I have to change the main photo for this blog from the Sant Antoni market across from our never-realized Tamarit place to something Casanova-related.)

2015-08-14 The hour(s) of vermouth

The day started out innocently enough, with me working on code inside and irene doing her homework on the roof deck.

 The cable cars to Montjuïc was running (we can see the other one in the other direction too):

And we had a snack of sausage, olives, bread and lupini beans. We felt pretty damned healthy. Until...

After a long day of coding, and irene returning from Spanish class, I had to get out of our small flat. We ran across a little hole-in-the-wall place selling booze half way to the Boqueria near a sculpture that looks like Spock made. It had a few tables, but in Barcelona they have to be pulled at midnight on weekdays and 01:00 on weekends -- it's a densely packed city with a thorough mix of residential and commercial. Tough decision: stand up and drink, or ... well, there wasn't any other choice, was there.

The young couple that ran the bar were super friendly, tolerating our bad Spanish and helping us out. When we asked for a vermouth -- she said they had a local artisan product -- we were a bit surprised when we got a pint glass filled to the rim. OK, so it wasn't a pint glass, but it was at least 6 ounces or 200 ml.  For something like €3. And it was tasty.

At some point, a clutch of German tourists showed up and ordered beers and Jamesons, and something must have happened because our bartender told them to get out immediately. She had dialed into her cellphone the number of the local police and was counting down "5... 4... 3..." ready to hit the Call button. We never found out what the Germans did to inspire her wrath, but they handed back their glasses and walked away without a fight or anything ugly. We had another round of Vermouths to calm our distressed nerves.

Someone there has a fun sense of design  and great penmanship:

Shortly before 02:00 closing time, the omnipresent Barcelona cleaning machine swings into full gear. We thought we might get soaked, so quickly ordered a third round of the giant vermouths just in case. Somehow, we narrowly missed getting hit by the spray, another close call.

We were gonna head back the next night to ruin our livers again at the same place, but we only had €3 left between us, and besides, it was raining a little.