La Gilda: From the Silver Screen to Aperitivo Hour

A film star, a cocktail stick and a glass before lunch. The story behind Cha’s Gilda i Vermut poster takes a wonderfully indirect route from Hollywood to the Spanish bar.

Look at her expression. The lowered eyelids, the lifted chin, the lips that seem about to deliver a line. She has found her light and knows exactly what to do with it. Then look again: this leading lady is an aperitivo.

In Gilda i Vermut, Cha gives a familiar bar snack the presence of a screen star. The joke works at a glance. Its backstory takes us from a Buenos Aires casino to a counter in San Sebastián, with a stop for vermouth along the way.

Before the pintxo, the picture

Gilda arrived in 1946, directed by Charles Vidor, with Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford. Its world is a Buenos Aires casino, where gambling is only one of the games being played. Johnny Farrell, played by Ford, goes to work for casino owner Ballin Mundson, then discovers that his employer’s wife, Gilda, is a woman from his own past.

Desire, jealousy and power circulate between them. A look can become an accusation; affection is entangled with possession. The film is a classic of noir, but its most enduring image is a musical performance: Hayworth in a black evening gown, peeling off a long black glove during Put the Blame on Mame. A remarkably small gesture has an enormous afterlife.

Gilda became an icon of the femme fatale. Watching her only through that label, though, leaves something out. We can also read the film as a portrait of a woman caught in the stories men tell about her, watched, judged and controlled by men who confuse wanting her with owning her. That tension makes the glamour more interesting. Her performance is dazzling; the world around her is anything but carefree.

How Gilda acquired a cocktail stick

Across the Atlantic, a much smaller Gilda found a home on the bar. The traditional pintxo brings together a green olive, an anchovy and a pickled guindilla pepper, often called a piparra. Thread them onto a cocktail stick and there is very little more to do.

The familiar local story places its origins at Casa Vallés in San Sebastián. In the telling passed around the city, the combination acquired the film’s name because it was verde, salada y picante: green, salty and spicy. Spanish lets the description wink at the audience. Verde can suggest something risqué, salada someone lively or witty, and picante something saucy as well as hot.

It is a good bar story, and best presented as one: a local tradition rather than a naming ceremony whose every detail can be proved. San Sebastián’s own tourism office introduces the connection as a legend. The association has nevertheless given three everyday ingredients an unusually cinematic identity.

The flavour is less theatrical than the reputation might suggest. The anchovy supplies salt and savoury depth; the pepper brings vinegar and crunch; the olive adds a rounded, fleshy bite. Piparras are often mild, although heat varies. Eaten together, the ingredients make sense of one another. The pleasure lies in that compact balance, rather than in a contest of chilli endurance.

And the vermouth? It comes alongside

The gilda is the pintxo. Vermouth is the drink that can accompany it, not an ingredient in the traditional skewer. CHA’s title, Gilda i Vermut, pairs the two with a Catalan i: Gilda and vermouth.

Vermouth begins with wine, flavoured with botanicals such as herbs, roots, flowers, citrus peel and spices. It is generally fortified with added alcohol and sweetened to different degrees according to the style. Its name comes from the German Wermut, meaning wormwood: the plant, not the anise flavoured spirit called absinthe.

Flavoured wines are much older than the modern bottle. Turin and Antonio Benedetto Carpano’s traditional date of 1786 are an important landmark in the story of modern vermouth. They are less useful as an absolute claim that one person invented the whole idea. The Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails notes the difficulty of verifying the familiar origin story.

A short journey around the vermouth map

Turin and Piedmont remain central to the Italian story. Across the Alps, Chambéry has its own tradition, represented by Dolin. Further south in France, Noilly Prat is associated with Marseillan, beside the Étang de Thau. These are distinct places and traditions, rather than interchangeable names on a drinks menu.

In Spain, Reus in Catalonia is a particularly strong point of reference. The city’s tourism office treats vermouth as part of its industrial and social history. Further south, Jerez offers another expression of the category through sherry wines. Lustau’s red vermouth, for example, combines Amontillado and Pedro Ximénez. The wine underneath the botanicals can bring a very different character to the glass.

There is also a useful distinction to make at the bar. Vermouth is a category; Martini is a brand, with a history dating to 1863. A Dry Martini is a cocktail, classically made with gin and dry vermouth. And a pale colour does not guarantee a dry taste: Dolin’s white vermouth is sweeter than its Dry. Blanc, bianco and dry are worth reading, rather than treating as synonyms.

The hour that belongs to everyone at the table

In Spain, tomar el vermut, or fer el vermut in Catalan, describes a social occasion as much as a drink: meeting before a meal, sharing a few things to eat and allowing the conversation to run. A gilda fits naturally here, alongside olives, crisps or good conserves.

Serve the vermouth cool, perhaps over ice with citrus, or with a splash of soda from a siphon if that is how you like it. With a sweeter style, the drink’s roundness can soften the sharp impression of vinegar and salt; its bitter and herbal notes keep the pairing lively. There is room for preference, rather than one compulsory formula. Once opened, keep the bottle in the fridge: fortified wine still loses freshness through oxidation.

Cha has already given this moment a different treatment in El Vermut. There, the number 22 and the caption below the image recall a Lotería card. Ice, a curl of citrus and broad green vine leaves gather around the glass against an ochre field. The drink is recognisable immediately. It has become an emblem of the occasion.

Cha brings the story back to the screen

With Gilda i Vermut, part of the Special Series La Cantina within her Spanish Capsule™ collection, Cha takes another route. The snack named after a film star becomes a star in its own right. Cinema returns to the pintxo that borrowed its name.

The oversized glass acts almost like a stage. The central figure has heavy olive green lids, a peach coloured mouth and long, tapering contours that suggest an extravagant evening silhouette. Beside her, an olive wrapped in a pale anchovy and pierced by a stick brings the whole performance back to the bar. Small radiating marks announce the entrance; little loops at the corners turn the border into a knowingly modest piece of decoration.

The lettering has the same loose confidence as the drawing. A tiny heart above the i in Gilda helps set the tone. Black lines carry the expression; cream, olive, peach and amber do the rest. The textured ground and slightly irregular outlines give it the warmth of an old printed notice without pretending to be an antique.

That is where Cha’s skill shows: in how little she needs to establish a character. The humour is affectionate, and the reference remains enjoyable even if you have never seen the film. Know the story, and another layer opens up. A bar snack has stepped into the spotlight with all the composure of someone who has been expected.

From Hollywood to San Sebastián, and from the bar to the wall, Gilda has changed her setting more than once. She has kept her sense of an entrance.

Sources & further reading

Film history: BFI, Gilda (1946); TCM, Gilda; MoMA, Gilda. 

The pintxo: San Sebastián Turismo, recipes and the Gilda tradition; Casa Vallés; Cadena SER, 10 August 2026. 

Vermouth: The Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails, “vermouth”; Carpano, company history; Dolin, White Vermouth; Marseillan Tourism, Noilly Prat; Reus Tourism, history of vermouth; Lustau, Vermut de Jerez; Martini, company history; International Bartenders Association, Dry Martini; Gastroteca, Catalan meal traditions; Julie Sheppard, Decanter guide, updated 14 August 2026.

Illustrations: original artworks by Cha, © Cha / MyRetroPoster. Header: Photomontage by Alex. Background photograph sourced from PxHere, listed under CC0 1.0 Universal. Gilda film poster (Columbia Pictures, 1946) added separately.