Chicote, Pedro “Perico” (1899–1977) was the most important Spanish bartender of the twentieth century. Over a career spanning more than six decades, he wrote five books, traveled the world, and amassed over twenty thousand bottles that he housed in his Madrid bar until his death.
Born on May 13, 1899, in Madrid, Chicote lost his father at an early age and had to take a variety of small jobs to provide for his family. Through a friend, he became a waiter and, in 1916, started work at the bar of the Ritz, where he received the first bottle of his collection. See Ritz.
From 1923, he worked as a full-fledged bartender in various establishments patronized by Madrid’s higher classes, which had taken to cocktails during World War I. During summers, he followed his clientele to the resort town of San Sebastian. It was at Pidoux, the first serious American bar in Madrid, that Chicote really made a name for himself. During his stint there, he wrote the first of his eight books, El Bar Americano en España, and became quite the celebrity—he even had his own perfume.
In 1931, with the money he earned at Pidoux, he opened Chicote on Gran Via, then Madrid’s most modern avenue. (Later renamed Museo Chicote, the art deco bar exists to this day.) Cocktails were then in fashion, and those were Chicote’s golden years, although he is better known for the visits he received from figures such as Dwight D. Eisenhower or Ava Gardner in the 1950s, when he became a poster boy for the Franco regime. (His politics, though, remain vague: the preface of his second book was written by the left-wing Nobel Prize laureate Jacinto Benavente, and it was under the republic that he was handed the parliament’s catering—which he kept under the dictatorship.)
Although Spanish bartenders still follow some of his precepts (such as twisting citruses with ice tongs instead of hands), none of Chicote’s recipes, most of them variations on the Perfect Martini, are classics. See Perfect. It was his uncanny ability to connect with clients of all walks of life that ensured his popularity. His funeral on Christmas Day 1977 was a very public affair, and he is probably the only bartender to have a commemorative plaque placed on the house where he lived.
Gomez-Santos, Marino. Perico Chicote. Barcelona: Ediciones Cliper, 1958.
J.M.O. [pseud.]. “Con Chicote murió una parte de la historia de Madrid.” Blanco y Negro, January 4, 1978, 44.
“Pedro Chicote.” ABE : Órgano oficial de la Asociación de Barmen españoles 1 (1965).
By: François Monti