Where are we?
We're in El Bar Bero, Calle Loiza, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Why don't you show us around then.
Let's do it
Let's start with the chair you're sitting on because that's kind of interesting.
Well, we found this chair in in pieces in an old antique shop
They didn't even know what they had.
It's from 1898 and I restored it with my father a little bit.
We tried to preserve the inside of the barber chair. It's still the actual original wood.
So the bones of it are original?
Yeah, yeah yeah.
You got some other chairs here.
We have gotten them over the years. Some clients have brought them in.
Or recommended us places that we can get them them.
This one was over from Utuado.
supposedly one of the old school governors of the island also had haircuts over there in Utuado in the 40s or 50s.
These two I found over in Cupey.
And over here, I found that in the mountains in Guaynabo.
So where did you get the idea? I mean why did you want to do a a bar that is ...
Well, I always lived like near by, like two blocks away.
I always felt that this neighborhood lacked a little bit of nightlife.
Since, it had more movement during the day
I saw this place. This was actually a beauty salon/barbershop for 33 years.
It was abandoned for maybe like 10 years.
And saw the opportunity to get the space.
I wanted to create a bar,
because there wasn't that much of a cocktail scene here in Puerto Rico
And I like cocktails myself.
So when I was looking for a name for the bar, I remembered that there were barbers here.
And beauticians, so i wanted to pay a little bit of a tribute to something that lasted so long in the area.
So do you do you feel the spirits of the old barbers coming up behind you to cut your hair?
They drink with us at night man! They come here and we can see some some bottles turn at night.
So they're definitely here. You can definitely feel the good vibe here, I can assure you.
So, you got the customers in here. Do you ever find them drinking and talking to somebody who is not here?
After maybe like five cocktails ...
you will be talking a little bit more than you would want to so yeah.
You got some really cool old games and stuff?
Yeah, I'll take you to it.
I mean, is this the secret, the secret room or do people know it's back here?
Over here we have like an old school gambling bedding table.
It's from 1950's.
It's completely hand-carved one-piece of wood.
Very few artisans know this type of technique.
It's an honor for us to have this.
How old did you say this was?
This is from the 1950's.
So people normally can come, place a few friendly beds but not necessarily with money.
Does it still work?
Oh yeah, yeah it definitely works
Right now we have it stationary.
Do you have artisans in Puerto Rico that still make them?
Yeah, but obviously the most important ones have passed away,
but they're trying to keep that tradition alive definitely.
That's good. That's nice, and it's good that you have it here try to kind of share it a little.
Yeah normally my generation doesn't know that much about ...
They are more into Nintendo!
Exactly! Hey i'm into it too, though but I like to have that old school.
l a little balance in there.
People come in here, do you find them coming here because of the barber kind of theme here?
Yeah, at first it was very curious too.
Like when facebook started, a lot of girls were would check in on places.
"Okay, tonight I'm at this bar. Tonight I'm in this place", and they checked in and they would say, "I'm in El Barbero"
Everybody would say why is somebody checking in in a barber shop at 1am!
So it caused a lot of curiosity among people and like nobody ever sits on 30s or 20s barber chairs.
So it's a, it's like a very interesting way to spend the night you know.
A little bit of history, a little bit of cocktail history as well.
Something to talk about in the morning?
Exactly!
So you have how many drinks? You said you created the recipes and stuff?
Yeah, I've created maybe like 85% of the menu.
Over the years, our crew have also made some great cocktails that are still here.
But we have more than 60 cocktails.
We try to make it unique, but at the same time not that expensive either.
We don't like to have this pretentious vibe also.
It's very affordable for everybody. We have to cater to everybody here.
It's not necessarily just people that like to go to nightclubs.
Everybody can come here even your grandfather or the ones that just graduated from university you know.
Are you going to show me one of your specialty drinks?
Well, Fernando is the one that's gonna make us a cocktail that is very special for us.
Ron Del Barrilito, is my favorite rum. It's Puerto Rico's oldest rum actually.
And we have the pleasure of having the actual wood chips from their aging barrels.
Barrilito gave us a barrel and dedicated it to us so we can do this cocktail here.
Us and over there in the rum factory is where you can get this.
He's smoking it right now with the actual wood chips.
A little bit of star anise and cinnamon.
So those blocks of wood are actually part of the barrel.
But we also have those little wood chips as well.
So right now he's smoking the cocktail glass.
We add a little bit of that ice, and now all that ice is gonna catch all that smoke and like suck it inside.
We add a little bit of like mole bitters as well to make it a little bit unique.
A little bit of demerara homemade syrup.
And we grate a little bit of raw cacao, 100% raw cacoa from the island.
So it's not that sweet, but it gives it a little bit of balance definitely.
We also flame an orange peel on top to give it that zestiness that it needs.
But it's Puerto Rico's oldest rum. It's made with cherry oak casks so it's very special.
So this is one of how many recipes did you say?
More than sixty definitely.
Man how long does it take to learn all of those recipes?
I can say that, um a lot of hangovers definitely!
Trying them out, but maybe we try them like two or three takes we have it down.
Well yeah it's been over the years, and we've been here almost 11 years.
We tried to remove a lot of the cocktails from the menu to try to bring in new ones, but people won't let us. They just like them so much.
So we just keep on the menu keep on just adding them.
That plain orange peel on top definitely gives that aroma that you're looking.
Lik that raw cacao.
[saucy salsa music]
Salud!
Until next time we're in Puerto Rico.
Yeah man, hopefully so.
What was it salud?
Salud.
Thank you.