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INDUSTRY & TRADE

Out of stock: Spain’s nightlife faces alcohol shortages

At the Cafe Comercial, one of Madrid's oldest cafes whose marble columns and ornate chandeliers draw throngs of tourists and locals, bottles of some popular drinks are in short supply.

Published: 14 November 2021 09:51 CET
Filled shot glasses on a tray
Supply chain issues are making it hard for bars and restaurants to keep up with demand for certain brands of alcoholic drinks. picture alliance / dpa | Axel Heimken

“It is hard to get deliveries. Certain brands of gin, tequila and whisky are impossible to find,” the manager of the emblematic cafe, Raul Garcia, told AFP.

“The lack of stock is affecting well-known international brands we never would have thought would one day be unavailable.”

He is not alone.

Due to supply chain issues caused by the pandemic, bars and nightclubs across Spain have struggled to stock their shelves since Covid-19 restrictions on social life were fully lifted last month.

This is raising hackles in a country where social life is concentrated outside of the home, and big groups often meet up for tapas or dinner followed by rounds of drinks.

“The shortage is not generalised, but is concentrated on some brands. The problem is that these are brands people are very attached to,” said Roberto Ucelay, the manager of the Los Olivos Beach Resort in Tenerife, part of Spain’s Canary Islands.

Among the popular names affected are Beefeater gin, Absolut vodka and Patron tequila.

‘Problem of delivery’
The shortages are due to the global shipping crisis, sparked by an uptick in demand from China and the United States which “affects all international trade”, Spain’s association of spirits makers, Espirituosos Espana, said in a statement.

Suppliers have struggled with shortages in bottles and cardboard boxes needed to package alcohol, as well as a lack of drivers, containers and trucks to ship it.

“It is not a problem of the availability of products, it is a problem of delivery,” said a spokesman for France’s Pernod Ricard, the world’s number-two spirits maker.

Other European nations like Britain have also been hit by alcohol shortages, but in Spain the problem is compounded by the country’s consumption patterns, he said.

Bars and restaurants account for almost half of all alcohol sales in Spain, compared to just one-fifth in France, where supermarkets account for the bulk of sales, the spokesman said.

When business picked up in Spain after virus restrictions were removed, this more complicated supply chain “had to get up and running again” — a process that takes time, he said.

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‘There are alternatives’

Daniel Mettyear, analyst at London-based alcohol industry consultancy IWSR, agreed, saying Spain’s supply system “is fragmented and involves many players”, which adds to the difficulties.

“Spain is the country in the world with the most bars and restaurants per inhabitant,” he said.

During the months that virus restrictions on social life were in place, bars reduced their orders and liquidated their stocks of alcohol and it will take time to replenish them now that business has picked up, he said.

“They have a long way to go,” he said.

Spain’s association of spirits makers predicts the problem will not last long, but with the busy Christmas holidays fast approaching, businesses are worried.

Ucelay, the manager of the Los Olivos Beach Resort, said he has been told it will take six months to get some brands of champagne.

“That is too long,” he said.

Vicente Pizcueta, spokesman for Noche de Espana, an association which represents the nightclub sector, said the problem will continue “as long as the market is not more fluid”.

“We have a problem with certain brands, not with types of alcohol. Spain is an important spirits maker and has brands that remain available in all categories,” he said. “There are alternatives.”

 

 

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SPANISH HISTORY

Who are the historical figures that dominate Spanish street names?

Once you get to know your town or city in Spain better, you may start to wonder who the people that feature so often in street signs actually were. It's a window into Spanish society and history, and the historical figures that Spaniards value.

Published: 5 March 2024 12:09 CET
Who are the historical figures that dominate Spanish street names?

Whenever you take a stroll through a new place, whether in Spain or abroad, whether on holiday or in a new city you’re making home, noticing (and learning) some of the street names is one of the first things you do.

And though they can be very useful in terms of directions and getting a feel for a place, street names can also tell us quite a bit about a place — the history, the society and culture, its key historical figures.

This is true in most countries, of course. If you were to take a stroll through any town or city in the UK, you’d likely come across a London Rd., High St., or Market St. before long. If you’re looking out for historical figures, it’d be King. St or Charles St. or even something a little more obscure like Bob Marley Way.

In France, you’d no doubt see many a Rue de Charles de Gaulle, or Victor Hugo, two of the three most common historically inspired street names found in France.

READ ALSO: Which French figure has the most streets named after them?

But what about Spain? What are the most common street names in Spain, and which historical figures are most often used?

A research project at Pablo de Olavide University has revealed the most common street names in Spain, and they tell us quite a lot about Spanish history, society and culture. “Street names are not random, but reflect the social, cultural and historical values of a population,” says Daniel Oto-Peralías, Professor at Pablo de Olavide, who led the project. 

The project studied the street names in 8,131 municipalities across Spain through textual analysis techniques. It also has a great search engine tool, which you can find here, so you can search for different street names across Spain.

Mercado (Market) is a common name for streets and squares in Spain, but not as common as ‘iglesia’ (church). Photo: Zeynep Sümer/Unsplash
 

Of course, not all streets are named after great historical figures. Often they are fairly generic and geographically derived — think Church St. or Mill Lane in English.

According to the analysis done by Pablo de Olavide, in Spain the most common name in street names overall was iglesia (church) with 4,767 across the country, though this isn’t particularly surprising in a Catholic country.

Next was mayor (main) with 3,762; followed by fuente (fountain) with 2,544; constitución (constitution) with 2,439; real (royal) with 2,208; and finally eras with 2,063 streets around Spain.

READ ALSO: Why does Madrid have a plaza named after Margaret Thatcher?

Historical figures

The presence of historical figures is also significant in Spanish street names. The most renowned is the writer Miguel de Cervantes, the author of arguably the most famous novel of all time, Don Quixote, who appears in 1,940 streets across the country.

He is followed by Nobel Prize winning scientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the man dubbed the father of modern neuroscience, with 1,383 streets, and Granada poet Federico García Lorca (shot by Franco’s fascists for being a homosexual), who has more than a thousand.

Alexander Fleming, the Scottish scientist who discovered penicillin, is in fact the seventh most common Spanish street moniker named after a male historical figure.

Pope John XXIII and El Greco, the Greek painter and sculptor who played a significant role in the Spanish Renaissance and died in Toledo, are also very popular street names all over the country.

There are hundreds of streets named after Spanish conquistadors Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro and of course Cristobal Colón (Christopher Columbus), as well Spanish painters Velázquez (who painted ‘Las Meninas’) and Francisco de Goya (‘La Maja Desnuda’) and as could be expected plenty of Picasso Streets. The lesser-known 17th century Spanish artist Murillo also gives his name to many streets.

Additionally, poets Antonio Machado, Juan Ramón Jiménez and Miguel Hernández feature in lots of calles across Spain, as does the scandal-hit emeritus king Juan Carlos I.

Gender gap

However, the study also revealed that just 12.7 percent of the streets named after people in Spain are named after women.

Republican lawyer and politician Clara Campoamor, widely considered the mother of Spain’s feminist movement, is the woman most commemorated. She spearheaded the push for universal suffrage and achieved Spanish women’s right to vote in 1931.

Campoamor is followed by 19th century Galician poet and novelist Rosalía de Castro and 20th century philosopher and essayist María Zambrano.

Catholic Queen Isabel I, who together with King Ferdinand led the Reconquista against the Moors and united ‘modern Spain’, is also widely featured, as is the mother of current King Felipe VI, Reina Sofía.

Other Spanish women whose names are emblazoned across Spanish street plaques were usually ahead of their time in patriarchal Spain, including Concepción Arenal (considered the precursor of social work in Spain) and 19th century María Pineda (a liberal who faced the guillotine for defying the absolute monarchy of Fernando VII). 

Religious streets

Of course, historical figures aside, Spain unsurprisingly has a huge number of streets with religious names. Research from Pablo de Olavide also revealed just how many streets in Spain have religious names — 12 percent overall.

In provinces such as Burgos, Navarra and Cuenca there are religious references in more than 15 percent of the streets, but perhaps the most striking example is the case of the Triana-Los Remedios neighbourhood in Seville, one of the traditional hotbeds of Semana Santa activity, which has 41 streets dedicated to ‘virgins’ alone.

READ HISTORY: Why are there so many Irish street names in Spain’s Canary Islands?

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