Prepping for a Wine-Based Summer
Hot days and steamy nights encapsulate the summers in the Deep South. New Orleans finds a incredible heat penetrating our cars, almost melting those silver shields we use to try to keep out the heat. Air conditioning is everywhere, but we know the quality of the doors and windows instantaneously when you walk into a building and the air hits your spine with a chill on a hot afternoon. As we transition to night, the sun goes away but it doesn’t exactly cool off. It just gets heavier. The air is wet and soon so are you. We exist in this weight of slightly damp clothes and skin. As if you took them out of the dryer a few minutes too early. At the same time, things relax and slow down in the summers here. They have to. The heat alone slows us down to a crawl. Many students and faculty with the universities exit town. The families with a mountain getaway in North Carolina or Tennessee get out of Dodge if they can afford it. The rest of us enjoy a quieter city. We find ourselves slowly swinging on porches and chatting with neighbors in the waning hours of the day after work, often with a drink in hand. But what shall we have in our glass?!
A cocktail could be right. Mix up an ice cold, classic Daiquiri or a Gimlet. But if we don’t drink it fast enough, it would warm up. Remember, nothing moves fast this time of year. I’m not sure I want hard liquor in this heat. Plus, I don’t want to work that hard for my drink. Even shaking can be too much. A cold beer keeps it super simple, but if my glass isn’t coming from the freezer, I might not make it through the beer before it’s too warm. Wine is great, especially those light bodied reds that drink well chilled, but, again, it’s a bit tricky to keep the temperature cool with that hot, steamy air enveloping your glass. So what do I reach for in these difficult times of drink choice? Wine-based cocktails (or highballs to be specific)…
Why, you ask? Because the options are endless and highballs are your friend this time of year. They exhibit the perfect characteristics for a hot summer night of lazily sitting on the porch or grilling some veggies for dinner. Lower alcohol so we don’t internally heat up quite as much as a full-strength cocktail. There’s ice in my glass so it will stay colder a bit longer. And as it melts, it doesn’t make the drink worse. It may even improve it. The names may seem odd and not typical of your average American happy hour specials, but trust me, the Europeans drink well in the summer. Tinto de Veranos and Rebujitos from Spain. Vermouth and Tonic and Spritzes from France and Italy. White Port and Tonic from Portugal. Or even the creative touches from our American bartenders mixing up wine-based things create the right partner for whatever my mood.
Vermouth may have been the bastard child of the cocktail lounge in the 70’s and 80’s, but we are way past that. Not only has it been embraced by most every progressive bartender, but the quality and options continue to impress. There is basically a vermouth for everyone these days. In a vermouth you are equipped with a slightly stronger, wine-based (my favorite part), slightly bittered and slightly (or sometimes not slightly) sweetened “base”. This means it holds up well to dilution, it has at least a little acid to add brightness, it’s great before dinner as an aperitif and the sweetness adds plenty of body even when chilled down with ice. Then pick your favorite mixer. Love fancy tonic water? Use that Fever Tree Aromatic Tonic in there! Need a pick me up? Add some cold brew coffee from your fridge and then a splash of tonic or soda water! Want to keep it simple? Sparkling water and a citrus twist will do! Love grapefruit soda? Cap Corse Quinquina and grapefruit soda is awesome! Prefer Sparkling wine? Start with a aperitif, add a splash of soda water, then finish with sparkling wine and a twist! Even red wine or manzanilla sherry are phenomenal with some citrusy, lemon-lime-y soda. In fact, they are two of the most refreshing drinks in my arsenal because the dryness makes them like alcoholic gatorade. Whatever wine-based product you can find, there’s a match for it to make a super-refreshing highball for your many porch filled summer evenings.
Now we don’t have to stop there. Each category, alone, has endless variations. The Spritz (aperitif + soda water + sparkling wine) is a blueprint for you to plug and play as you please. The aperitif highball (aperitif + juice or carbonated soft drink) works the same way. Even Sangria (wine + juice + soda water + fruit) can make a batch of something delicious and quenching for you and a porchful of friends. In the summer, we tend to like things drier than in winter so just cut back the sugar a bit and add some fresh lemon juice for brightness and “quenchability”. If I’m really feeling lazy I grab a bottle of Vinho Verde (it’s already practically “wine gatorade” straight from the bottle), chill it hard and pour it over some rocks with a twist. It may seem sacrilegious as a respectful lover of the craft of wine-making, but, hell, it feels like the inside of a mouth out there. Chill it down and drink up. No Old Fashioned or Martini or even Moscow Mule is going to slake your thirst and set the pace nearly as well for the steam-filled evenings to come. It’s almost summer, y’all. Get it ready.