Macera is a small Malasaña room on Calle de San Mateo that does one thing: it macerates its own spirits in large glass jars stacked along the back wall, then uses those infusions as the base of every drink on the menu. Walk in and the jars are the first thing you see - twenty of them, in a backlit row, labelled by spirit and botanical, each one slowly drawing flavour out of whatever the owners have decided to put inside it that month. The right way to read the menu is to read the jars.
The bar rotates jars roughly every quarter as ingredients come in and out of season. Whatever is on the back wall in summer is not what is there in winter. Ask the bartender what is current and which drink is built around it. Macera is a small bar - approximately twenty seats - and fills from 9pm; arrive before 8.30 if you want to talk to the team.