Find LAIE

Our story

Vermut de Barcelona

LAIE takes its name from the Laietani, the people who lived on this coast before there was a Barcelona to be from.

The LAIE team, six people in white shirts, laughing together in an arched doorway, two of them holding bottles of LAIE Rojo.

How it started

It started with truffles, which is not where anyone expects a vermut to begin.

Àlex Cardona was a journalist in Barcelona before he became the person people call when they want to eat well there. Raj Nallapothola is a restaurateur and importer of gourmet foods. They met on one of Àlex's food tours, stayed friends, and when the world shut down they started sending Catalan truffles to restaurant kitchens in Los Angeles.

Tins from the Spanish coast followed. Then the question that turned into a company: these are the foods of one particular hour, so could the hour itself travel?

It could. LAIE is what came back the other way.

Wooden back-bar shelves on blue herringbone tile holding rows of bottles, with a globe chandelier above the bar.
Line drawing of an elderflower sprig
Line drawing of a wheel of citrus

Elderflower and citrus rind, two of the botanicals in LAIE Rojo.

The line back

How a Barcelona habit ended up in a bottle

Vermouth

It started on the pharmacy side of the counter

Wine steeped with wormwood and whatever bitter things the shop kept that season, sold across a counter by people in aprons. Then it crossed to the café side of the room, and what had been a formula became an order. LAIE is made in Barcelona.

The tradition

Barcelona put a clock on it

The custom settled in the city and got a clock. Sunday, after mass, before a lunch that would not be served until three. Bodegas kept a siphon on the counter and a tin opener behind it. The habit thinned for a while, long enough to read as something your grandfather did, and then people in their thirties took it back, and their grandfathers were still sitting there.

Today

Poured somewhere else

It is poured now in rooms that keep an hour like this, or would like to.

Find a bottle →

Who we are

Two people and a shared hour

  • Raj Nallapothola in a white shirt, smiling and holding a bottle of LAIE Rojo in a warmly lit restaurant.

    Raj Nallapothola

    Co-founder

    Based in Los Angeles. A restaurateur and importer of gourmet foods.

  • Àlex Cardona in a white shirt, smiling and holding a bottle of LAIE Rojo in a hotel lobby with chandeliers.

    Àlex Cardona

    Co-founder

    Catalan, based in Barcelona. A journalist first, then the person people call when they want to eat well there.

Gold MedalBartender Spirits Awards 2024View the citation ↗Associate memberInternational Bartenders AssociationOn the official Product List, World Cocktail Championship 2026, Macau ↗

The hour the whole thing is built around has a page of its own.

Read about La Hora del Vermut