Javier de las Muelas, the man who will sell a million cocktails this year

BarcelonaJavier de las Muelas is 69 years old, has lived many lives and still plans to live a few more. The well-known bartender and businessman welcomes me at the Dry Martini Speakeasy and he gives more headlines than he could possibly fit into an interview. Some examples: "I like the liturgy of cocktails: I consider bars to be churches and bartenders to be priests. And the clients to be parishioners." Or when he says that "cocktails, even if they sell themselves as aeronautical engineers, are very simple. What is not simple is having the desire to serve and the intelligence to understand who you have in front of you" or that "people are communists when they have nothing to share." Or when he defends that he does not like "meaningless sophistication. I like the product. What Bulli did 30 years ago, and what famous people continue to do now, is no longer valid" or that "it is not true that in this profession we all get along... People get along and are generous when they are at the top."

He claims many names, such as that of the Catalan Montse Guillén and her restaurant El Internacional in New York frequented by painter Jean-Michel Basquiat in the 1980s. Jean Louis Neichel's, key in the love story with his wife Lourdes, since they both loved the restaurant he had on top of Barcelona. Or Francesc Fortí, the chef at Rincón de Binu, with whom he has such a connection that every week he brings him the famous orange ice cream soufflé from Argentona to serve him at the Speakeasy. That of Santi Santamaria, the first chef who treated him as an equal and with whom he shared so many breakfasts. Maria Dolores Boadas, who had "the most important bar of all." The name of Ramon Cabau, who he saw since he was a child in the Boqueria – a market that he says he now finds appalling – and who according to him we don't remember enough. And that of the Reixach sisters, from Hispania, to whom he believes we owe a tribute.

The conversation with De las Muelas has two axes, one looks forward, and the other backwards. He describes himself as a modern man and now has a new line of business that proves it. The man who started selling TBOs in the queue at the Sant Andreu de Palomar police station when he was 7 years old, this 2025 he will reach the goal of selling more than a million cocktails. It is the latest adventure, which is called Ready to drink , ready-made cocktails for venues that are not his own. The figures he presents to me are impressive. At Café Zurich alone, in Plaza Catalunya, he has sold 14,000 in three months. In total, in 2024 he sold nearly 600,000 and this year he already knows that he will exceed one million. How has he done it? By understanding how the industry works. He serves them a large number of cocktail references in bags – piña colada, negroni, capirinha, mojito – and all they have to do is keep them cold. He gives them the glasses that go with each preparation and a simple video on how to serve them. This solves many problems for which he does not have specialized personnel. Against this model? The bartenders, of course. His son Borja has joined this project and that makes him happy, because it means that there is continuity in the business.

A single reproach and tons of nostalgia

Javier de las Muelas only reproaches himself for not having accepted the proposal to open a restaurant in the Twin Towers and go live in New York. From where he thinks he might not have returned. I ask him about modern cocktails and he says that modernity now lies in recovering classic forms. "Nowadays there is an abuse of ingredients and distillates. Genius is in simplicity. If you have to give me butterflies, I'm going to the circus." However, he has good words for some modern cocktail bars in Barcelona, ​​​​and remembers that "lists are good when you are there."

Now that he has perspective, he says that what worries him most is how society mistreats older people. An issue that interests him more than talking about cocktails. "They tell me that you can't be nostalgic. Why not? I think that any time in the past was better. Life is harder for young people. People live in shared flats. The possibility of work has disappeared. In the newspapers, some unpresentable enlightened people decided that the news was free. It's like I was giving away cocktails." And he detects a clear culprit: "I am very critical of the Internet. It is a Trojan horse. It is the greatest poison that has been introduced into humanity with the seduction that is the democratization of culture. And everyone is like a hamster going around in circles. There is no stillness, no responsibility, no love."