When I lived in the city of Barcelona, I was afraid of water. Tap water, yes. I even gave my cat mineral water, fearing that if I gave him tap water, he would die like a couple of plants already had. It's true that gardening has never been my thing. If they put me in charge of the Montseny Natural Park, in a couple of weeks I promise that spaghetti westerns could be filmed there, just like in the Almería desert.
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Madrid's tap water, on the other hand, has enjoyed great prestige for at least a couple of centuries, ever since the Canal de Isabel II was launched, a work so pharaonic that even very recently some have made a bit more money from it than was strictly justifiable… But, what's done is done ---which would be the plateau version of letting bygones be bygones---: in Madrid you can drink non-mineral water until you're fed up, and that's partly the success of squid sandwiches, churros, and Madrid beers. Of everything that depends on the intrinsic quality of H2O.
It's true that everything in life is fluid, and these things even more so. Not long ago I was in the lobby of a hotel in Barcelona. Let's say I felt compelled to consume without wanting to, just to pass the time, and I thought of ordering a bottle of water. I hoped to kill two birds with one stone and get one of those plastic bottles that you can take so nicely on the AVE, where it's known that now they don't even sell you a good morning. Imagine my surprise when I saw the waiter place before me a crystal bottle of at least three-quarters of a liter, with a marvelous design, both curvilinear and stylized. Something like La Pedrera made into a water bottle, and with the hotel's logo very clear and very brand new on top. It was accompanied by a note with the price: 3.90 euros.
Do I look like a tourist with this look? Were they really going to charge me almost four euros for an amount of water that I couldn't drink in one go even if I wanted to, and that is certainly not meant for me to take on the AVE… or is it? Don't they say we all carry a potential delinquent inside? …Well, the thing is, as soon as the waiter turned around, I resolutely grabbed my bottle, or rather, my big bottle, and left there as stiff as if I were carrying the Olympic torch. Also, of course, at full speed and without looking back.
I won't deny that I felt a bit ashamed. I felt somewhat guilty. It wasn't until I found myself safe inside my high-speed train that it occurred to me to turn the bottle over ---which, I insist, was beautiful--- and read something that left me astonished: the water in question had nothing mineral about it. It was exquisitely filtered tap water, yes, with all the love from the hotel management…
I let out a "damn it" and a laugh all at once. Seen that way, I no longer felt so bad about having taken the bottle. I even became convinced that I had paid them a good price for the container. But it must also be acknowledged that, judging by the taste ---and I pride myself on being a very good water gourmet, on having a very fine palate to distinguish and appreciate them…---, I would never have suspected that it could be tap water…from Barcelona. Not from my parents' village fountain, no, but from Barcelona, Barcelona. Water from the capital.
One of two, either the quality of the supply has improved enormously since I lived there, or someone has sharpened their ingenuity a lot to make a virtue out of necessity, and an art out of thirst. I said a while ago that Madrid's beers have always had the local water quality in their favor. This results in straightforward, uncomplicated, endearing draft beers. Although the many and varied inhabitants of Madrid do not turn their noses up at imported malts, and it is a joy and a pride for me to state that Inèdit, the beer proposal developed by Damm with Ferran Adrià and the sommeliers of El Bulli, with that charming star on its label, well, that beer is gaining many followers (both male and female) in the capital of the kingdom. I, who am lucky enough that they sell it in the supermarket next to my house, have had to commit to bringing a few six-packs to a few dinners in the outskirts. And I'll leave it at that.
…Not without adding that I eagerly await to see what becomes of Damm's new signature beer, which, as I have read right here, in The New Barcelona Post, will be called Equilàter and will be launched as a luxury stout, programmed by François Chartier, the terror of molecular harmonies, to pair with millimeter precision with up to four different aromatic and gastronomic ranges.
I don't see myself drinking a lot of stout; I'm more into lighter textures, precisely like Inèdit. But I'm fascinated by this idea of bombarding a beer with scent molecules that make it more or less suitable to accompany a ceviche or peus de porc. Just the other day, I had dinner with a friend from Madrid who, after overcoming coronavirus (he contracted it while caring for his sick mother), lost his sense of smell and is struggling to regain it. "But you don't smell anything at all?" I asked him. And he replied: "Something, but not nearly everything." Half-jokingly, half-seriously, he added that he's afraid of putting on too much perfume before going out... And that he's also taking advantage of the situation to finish off all the cheap and even terrible wines he had at home "because, after all, if I'm not going to notice the difference..."
And I felt so sorry for the poor man, who was telling me all this on a wonderful seventh-floor terrace overlooking Atocha station and the entire Glorieta de Carlos V. He had invited me to a Freixenet Pinot Noir to toast to Trump's defeat. I was in heaven, in every sense, and he was wondering if he was drinking cava or Trinaranjus... That's why when I read here, in The New Barcelona Post, that they are going all out to make a beer smell like Proust's madeleine... Anyway, I thought something like that might resurrect a dead man and even my poor friend's nose. Because with love and creativity, you can make magic even with tap water.