SPAIN holds the European record for being home to the most bars per inhabitant, according to a recent EU study.
The southern region of Andalucía alone has as many bars – which include pubs and cafés – as Ireland, Denmark, Finland and Norway combined, a statistic which will cause many to do a double take, given perceptions of the Irish as being hugely fond of their native Guinness.
If Andalucía was the only region with any bars at all, at 47,000 in total, it would still have enough for each to cater for 1,000 inhabitants in Spain.
But in practice, Andalucía is home to fewer than a fifth of the country's bars – the total number recorded is 279,243 across the whole of Spain, meaning one for every 169 residents.
And this is even in spite of the hangover from the financial crisis leading to 70,000 bars and cafés in Spain closing down in the past four years.
Although the country's 350,000 bars has dropped to 280,000, their takings still account for 15% of the country's GDP.
The figure of 169 is only the national average, however – many towns far exceed this.
In fact, Mogán, near Las Palmas on the island of Gran Canaria, has 547 pubs and cafés for just over 23,000 residents – meaning one for every 43 people.
As a result, if every single person in Mogán went to the pub at the same time, there would almost certainly be enough space for them all to find a seat at once.
Anecdotal evidence from other countries hints Spain may be equalled in certain isolated areas – the port town of Harwich, in north Essex, UK, was in the Guinness Book of Records around 15 years ago for having the most pubs per square mile.
But 'pub life' in Spain is very different to in the UK: bars generally serve coffee, soft drinks and alcohol at any time of the day, typically from around 07.00 to midnight depending upon location, frequently offer snacks and sometimes ice-cream, the majority have pavement terraces at the entrance, and are used at every hour by everyone from workmen to families with children, for after-work drinks or afternoon tea, lunchtime coffees and late-night half-pints, or cañas.
Those referred to as 'working men's bars' still serve cakes and coffee, and tea and coffee shops still serve wine and beer, meaning the distinction seen in northern Europe between a café and a pub is very blurred in Spain.
SPANISH celebrity chef José Andrés handed out sandwiches and soup in Washington DC to civil servants who have not been paid for nearly a month as a result of the shutdown of Donald Trump's administration. Andrés...
A MEDITERRANEAN diet has long been hailed as one of the most healthy on earth, even though it is said to be in decline in Spain and is far less likely to be the régime of choice in inland areas, where red meat –...
HEALTH authorities in Spain have warned of an 'undeclared presence of nuts' in strawberry ice-cream cones from the UK distributed in shops in the Comunidad Valenciana. According to the Spanish Consumer, Food...
CUT-PRICE German supermarket chain Lidl has re-launched a top-of-the-range food processor which on the last day of June this year. The own-brand multi-functional kitchen gadget is a near-identical model to those sold by...
SPANISH celebrity chef José Andrés handed out sandwiches and soup in Washington DC to civil servants who have not been paid for nearly a month as a result of the shutdown of Donald Trump's administration. Andrés...
A MEDITERRANEAN diet has long been hailed as one of the most healthy on earth, even though it is said to be in decline in Spain and is far less likely to be the régime of choice in inland areas, where red meat –...
HEALTH authorities in Spain have warned of an 'undeclared presence of nuts' in strawberry ice-cream cones from the UK distributed in shops in the Comunidad Valenciana. According to the Spanish Consumer, Food...
CUT-PRICE German supermarket chain Lidl has re-launched a top-of-the-range food processor which on the last day of June this year. The own-brand multi-functional kitchen gadget is a near-identical model to those sold by...
CONSUMER organisation OCU has warned that 'zero'-branded food and soft drinks are not necessarily sugar-free. No law is in force obliging manufacturers and brand designers to guarantee products labelled as...
ANYONE who lives in, or regularly visits, Spain will have no doubt about why it's practically impossible to find imported wines – why bother selling coal to Newcastle, or oranges to Valencia? With just about every...
NOW out on the shelves, this year's has awarded or renewed stars for 159 restaurants in Spain – many of which need little introduction, and others which are complete outsiders waiting to be discovered. The annual...
A COLOUR scheme showing how nutritious or otherwise groceries on sale in Spanish supermarkets are will not be used for olive oil, since the algorithms used show it to be far less healthy than Coca-Cola Zero, and the...
SPAIN'S health ministry has launched a nutritional labelling system for all food sold in supermarkets, with five colours and an A-E grading scale. In response to requests of five major global food and drink...
THREE cheeses produced in Spain have been elected among the top 15 in the world out of nearly 3,500 others from more than 40 countries – and some of them are very affordable indeed. The Madurat (pictured), created by...
THE WORLD'S best olive oil is produced in Spain – it's official. As well as being the largest producer of olive oil on earth, even beating Italy, Spain is also well-known globally for the exceptional quality...
FREE alcohol deals could become illegal in the Greater Madrid region, and if the plan goes ahead, may stretch to other parts of Spain. In a bid to improve public health in general, an overhaul of food and drink...
