One bar for every 132 inhabitants? Only in Spain

Spanish bars: incredibly popular and well populated, all over the country

Yes, you read that right – only in Spain can you find one bar for every 132 inhabitants. Now, mischievous wags might argue that this fact has something to do with why the country’s economy is in the doldrums.

But not me. I’ve always found Spain’s relationship with alcohol, if you’ll excuse the pun, refreshing. Children are included and encouraged at the dinner table. Not to get rip-roaring drunk, of course, but to sample alcohol from an early age. It engenders respect and boundaries early on, which means there’s less desire to go out and get plastered as soon as Spanish teens become young adults…

Yep, I’ll concede that the heady mix of hormones, hot weather and calimocho (a deceptively potent concoction of cheap red wine and Coca-Cola) causes the occasional Spanish teen to go way beyond worse for wear. But on the whole, Spaniards are good drunks.

They don’t tend to binge – their naturally gregarious personalities mean that alcohol is not so much the social lubricant that it is in stiff-upper-lipped Britain – and they know their limits. And while they might not spend as much cash in a bar as a typical holidaying Brit, they’re far less likely to cause any damage to property or reputation, nor drive away other paying clientele.

But still, so many bars. The thing is, the Spanish tend to serve alcohol almost anywhere (including, rather disconcertingly, beer on tap in roadside service stations); at festivals, of course, but also at Sunday League-level football matches, on the beach, around the pool, and at McDonalds…

According to this recent Coca-Cola study, there are 350,000 registered bars in Spain, with the regions of La Rioja (unsurprisingly) and Extremadura boasting the most per head, at one every 132 inhabitants. The study also found that a whopping two-thirds of Spaniards can name the bar tender in their local, with 30 per cent of the 2,000 surveyed saying they trust their local barkeep enough to hand over their house keys.

The typical Spaniards’ relationship with their local bar is evidently important, with more than half saying that they ‘regularly’ visit bars, and five per cent in attendance every day.

Spanish alcohol is also impressively pure, well-priced and delicious – hence the attraction. From Sherry to Rioja via the beers of San Miguel, Mahou, Estrella and Cruzcampo, Spaniards are spoilt for choice. And hangovers are easier to deal with when there’s a pool or the Mediterranean merely a couple of stumbles away.

So if you like the idea of sipping good, cheap alcohol under searing Spanish sun, then get yourself on a plane. But do try to leave your British bingeing ways behind – it’s bad form to show yourself up as drunk in Spain, even though there are so many opportunities to do so…