There was a time when drinking demanded discretion. Unmarked doors, whispered passwords, bars hidden behind an anodyne facade. In the 1920s, while Prohibition tried to impose silence, American speakeasies refined their own language: less exhibition, more intention. Fewer ingredients, better chosen. The cocktail didn't need to raise its voice to leave a mark.
From that climate, Speakeasy Spirits is born, the new line of spirits from Javier de las Muelas, presented this week in Barcelona. A project that reinterprets the imagery of the 1920s not as a simple aesthetic gesture, but as a way to return to a more essential, precise, and unadorned cocktail making, where technique, control, and product regain prominence.
A Distilled Idea
"This is a project that came from our body and heart," explained Javier de las Muelas during the presentation of this new line of spirits. The phrase well summarizes the origin of an idea that doesn't emerge suddenly, but rather macerates over the years. "15 years ago we began to expand out of a mental, physical, and also business need. We wanted to bring Dry Martinito other locations." The first step was Madrid. Then came collaborations with different hotel companies and a particularly active period in Indonesia, Thailand and China.The pandemic forced a change of course. "Then arose the need to elaborate and sell ready-made cocktails, which would allow us to maintain control of our know-how. This gave us independence and control," explained the businessman. Thus was born the ready to drink line, which started three years ago and, since then, has not stopped growing. "We closed 2025 approaching one million units sold," he noted. When they started producing these cocktails for the HORECA channel, an almost inevitable question also arose: why not go a step further and also produce their own spirits?
The origin of the range
However, if De las Muelas was going to launch into producing his own references, these had to meet very clear minimums of quality and philosophy. His intention was not to compete with the large companies in the sector, but ratherto provide a personal perspective on a particularly saturated category."What is the product differentiation? That it responds to an exact formulation. Here two very clear disciplines come into play: mathematics and chemistry," he points out.Furthermore, from the beginning they wanted to work with organic products in all their preparations, avoiding chemically treated ingredients. "For us it was a key condition of the project. There are few distilleries that can sustain this level of demand," he notes. Theirs, located in Galicia, has all the necessary certifications. In fact, the Barcelona-based bartender and businessman points out that, in addition to these three references, they have developed between 18 and 19 own products, including coffee liqueurs and bitters.
A well-tuned triad
During the presentation,Gerard Acereda, an essential piece of Dry Martini's creative team, broke down the three Speakeasy Spirits references (available inVila Viniteca,LafuenteandEscolà), remembering that gin,vodkaand rum are the great protagonists of mixology and that, together, they cover 85% of the cocktails that are made.The Rye Vodka, explained Acereda, "is a tribute to simplicity and purity." To achieve this, it is distilled in a column, with 18 rectification trays, and subjected to a filtering system with carbon and a final pass through platinum. "The base has to be impeccable. From there, the flavors will come if you want to mix," he noted.
The Dry Gin, for its part, introduces another register. "If vodka is purity, gin is seduction," Acereda recalled, referring to a distillate that maintains that background cleanliness, but incorporates a more contained aromatic profile. And he added: "Great perfumers say that a perfume should not have more than three aromas, because from there it is difficult to maintain balance." The reference is not casual. It speaks of a way of working that also translates to mixology.
Finally, the Old Rum is approached from another place. Here the value is not so much in the origin as in time. "We couldn't make a rum now, because a rum like this needs years of aging," he explained, referring to the only distillate in the range that could not be organic. "What we did was select American bourbon barrels in which the liquid had been undisturbed for 15 years." The result is a very round and expressive rum, with the depth that years provide.
An aesthetic with memory
The reference to thespeakeasiesit doesn't stop at the name. "I am passionate about the 20s of the last century, about black and white, about boxing, about smoke and about gangsters," De las Muelas enumerated with a big smile. That imaginary runs through the entire project and is also translated into the design."We have worked on the bottle as if it were a perfume, with an aesthetic that refers to that glamour of another era, with references to Rita Hayworth or Marilyn Monroe."That approach also helps to understand some product decisions, such as the choice of American bourbon barrels for rum or the fact of working vodka with rye, a grain closely linked to North America. But, beyond the ingredients or the aesthetics, another underlying idea hovers over the project: a way of understanding mixology in which simplicity and product quality weigh more than showmanship.
"Today we live in a moment where there is a use and an abuse of ingredients", reflects the soul of Dry Martini. "We believe that genius lay in those cocktails created more than a hundred years ago in which notoriety was not pursued. In fact, there is nothing more wonderful than a negroni… and it only has three ingredients."
And it is that, beyond a new range of spirits, Speakeasy Spirits also function as a vindication of the craft, of quality and of the very meaning of mixology. "The bar should be the monument to socialization", says De las Muelas with conviction. And perhaps it is there, more than in the aesthetics or in the gesture towards another era, where the true key to the project lies.