Stuffed into the clear, tall, long-necked glass bottle was a mass of herbs, a couple of leaves and what regarded like a chunk of bark. “Fennel, rosemary, lemon verbena, chamomile, wild thyme, sage, eucalyptus, lemon leaves…,” the younger bartender started to record, as he poured a brief glass of Ibiza’s most well-known spirit, hierbas ibicencas (or herbes eivissenques, in Catalan), actually “Ibizan herbs.” Both out of failing reminiscence or skilled secrecy, he stopped. “Eleven of them,” he stated, “macerated in anisette for months.”
Sitting on a pointy bend of the principle highway that passes by Sant Carles de Peralta, a small inside village in northeast Ibiza, Ca n’Anneta—higher referred to as Bar Anita—opened in 1942 and gained fame as a hippie hangout within the Nineteen Seventies; it stays a beloved traditional that produces a number of the greatest hierbas on the island.
I had come first for a plate of their frita de pop, a traditional fisherman’s dish of stewed octopus, potatoes, onion and peppers, and thick slice of flaó, Ibiza’s iconic cake made with contemporary goat cheese and mint leaves. Transferring from the tree-shaded patio to the wood bar inside, I ordered an hierbas, a drink that serves as each an aperitivo and a digestivo.
Like the good natural liqueurs of Europe, from Chartreuse to génépi, hierbas ibicencas captures the distinctive taste of the native hills. What differentiates it’s that it started with a DIY bent and continues to have one; regardless of the supply of economic variations, many properties nonetheless choose to make their very own variations utilizing household recipes and herbs that they’ve gathered themselves on the island. In 1997, the Spanish authorities bestowed protecting Denominación Geográfica Hierbas Ibicencas standing on the liqueur, and whereas all have a through-flavor of herb-inflected anise, the person choice of herbs and the precise ratio of sweet-to-dry anisette impart a novel imprint on the ultimate style of every model.
Manufacturing of the liqueur traces again to antiquity, when islanders started selecting native Mediterranean herbs and creating medicinal infusions. These had been first commercialized in 1880 by Hierbas Familia Marí Mayans, as we speak the biggest and best-known model, producing some 500,000 liters of hierbas a yr, of which 75 p.c is bought in Ibiza and Formentera (Ibiza’s neighbor and the smallest of the Balearic Islands).
On a latest journey to Ibiza, it was late spring and the principle season to organize the liqueur had begun. “I make hierbas all yr spherical,” defined Vicente Vidal of Herbes Can Vidal, one other of the island’s small, extremely regarded producers, “though the most effective time is Could to June, as a result of that’s when chamomile is flowering and picked up for the entire yr, as is thyme, fennel and lemon verbena.”
With the assistance of a thin stick, sprigs of herbs get laboriously pushed down by the neck of the bottle, which is then full of anisette, which Vidal purchases from an organization in Barcelona. “Usually it’s made with candy anise, though you’ll be able to put a bit dry anise to make it not so candy,” he explains. As soon as corked, the bottles are left to macerate for a minimum of three months, as they develop intense aromas and, thanks largely to the chamomile, good lemony-gold colours.
The commonest solution to benefit from the liqueur is chilled. And whereas purists balk on the concept, some drinkers add an ice dice. In summer season, as Ibiza transforms into Europe’s social gathering capital, hierbas turns into a part of the membership scene as a well-liked shot. Bartenders on the island have begun utilizing it in cocktails as effectively, just like the Ibizan Cosmo, through which the natural liqueur stands in for the flavored vodka of the unique.
Earlier than leaving the island to go again to Barcelona, I ended by the Estanco San Juan, the tobacconist store in Sant Joan de Labritja that doubles as the house of Herbes Can Vidal. In 1928, Vicente Torres inherited the store and along with his spouse ran it and a restaurant subsequent door, the place they started promoting their selfmade hierbas. In the present day, beneath his grandson and namesake, it continues to be produced following the identical recipe.
For Vidal, the important thing substances are fennel, thyme, rosemary, lemon verbena, chamomile and mint. “Now we have by no means put lavender in it, and rue may be very robust and should you add an excessive amount of it could possibly dominate. For a similar motive, we don’t put in eucalyptus both, which isn’t native right here,” says Vidal, noting that his grandfather used to incorporate juniper bark, and that orange and lemon leaves may be added. He then paused earlier than providing, in abstract, a well-liked saying: “Cada maestrillo tiene su librillo”—everybody has his or her personal method of creating it.
