The Yayo Is Madrid’s Most Popular Underground Cocktail
Tourists in Madrid might expect to sip on cervezas, Garnacha wines, and Tintos de Verano. They might also hope to knock back a vermut — either straight or with soda. Indeed, Spain is the land of vermouth on tap, but there’s another, more underground vermouth-based cocktail popular among some Madrid locals.
It’s called the Yayo, and, proportions aside, it’s much like the Negroni. It’s just two parts Spanish vermouth pulled from a tap, one part lemon or unflavored soda, and a splash of gin. The rounded, fruity flavor and silky texture from the vermouth creates a perfect conduit for botanical gin and zippy soda. Whereas Negronis are a combination of gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari, the Yayo’s exchange of soda for the bitter aperitif yields a more welcoming, sip-and-sit-back experience. Altogether, it’s dry enough to make you want another and just boozy enough to comfortably refresh your palate when enjoying one in a sun-soaked Spanish plaza.
The drink’s birthplace is a bar and tapas restaurant called Casa Camacho, a dark, barrel-lined space bedecked in traditional Spanish adornments. When you walk up to the bar and ask for a Yayo, the bartender swiftly grabs a small glass cup from his stack, flicks the tap handle, and gets to work. The whole shabang takes about 45 seconds.
Searching the Yayo online will generate some recipes and stories about the cocktail, most of which refer to it as a popular choice in the Spanish capital. That is technically true: The locals who know of the drink love it. Others, however, call it one of the “best-kept secrets of Madrid’s traditional bars.” That’s also true: Some Madrileños have never even heard of it. Ask your tour guide, hotel receptionist, or any other local you encounter, and there’s a significant chance they don’t know about the drink. Ask a bartender at a touristy spot and you’ll have to give them the drink’s specs yourself. It’s much more of an in-the-know scene than you’d expect for a so-called “Madrid classic.”
The adventure of tasting the Yayo in Madrid will give you a true look at what it’s like to live in the city. Other than the bar that invented the drink, the places that do know what to make when asked for one are locals’ spots. Unfussy venues like Bodega de la Ardosa, Bodegas Alfaro, and Taberna de la Elisa are in the know. There are no jiggers nor mixing glasses in sight. They pour on a whim. Some places add a lemon wedge, but not the no-frills, run-down bodegas that make the best ones in town. They like to keep it straightforward with just the three requisite ingredients.
As a recipe from Cueva Nueva — a hip, newish vermouth brand founded by American expatriates now living in Spain — puts it, you can “eyeball [it] to your liking.” That’s the beauty of the Yayo. Unlike the Negroni, a drink marked by its three equal parts, the Yayo is made by pouring whatever looks right. For such a subjective, impulsive, and, of course, delicious drink, you’d expect more locals to be tapped in.
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