Cocktail Adventures #1: The Spritzer

Welcome to my Cocktail Adventures series, fellow readers.

In this series, I shall inform you on lesser known cocktails, which in my opinion should receive a bigger audience due to their fantastic taste, aroma and uniqueness.
If you're anything like me, drinking the same drinks constantly gets stale and boring rather quickly.

Don't view this as a simple recipe-styled tutorial. I wish to indulge you in the culture behind each drink, so that when your friends come, when you cook that special dinner, you have the special drink to match it all.

We will begin the series with a drink that is very popular in Germany, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia. It's a refreshing drink that is excellent for family get-togethers, picnics, or student parties, no matter the time of the year. Yes, you read that correctly. It does it all.

The Spritzer

For those of you that speak German, there's no denying the originality of the cocktail's name. ''Spritzen'' in German means to squirt/sprinkle, or in this case, add soda water to white wine. In Slovenia we call it a ''špricar'' and as you can imagine, the pronounciation is pretty much identical to the German variant that our neighbouring Austrians use.

The cocktail itself is pretty straightforward. It consists only of white wine, and soda water. It's the wine that determines the cocktail's taste, and the soda water that determines the alcohol percentage. ''Officially'' it's mixed 50-50, but don't do that. It's too watered down.

What you want to do first is get some good wine. Note, that not all wine is good in a spritzer. Wine, which is used solely for sipping straight, probably won't work well in a spritzer. You want a wine, which has too strong of an aroma to drink straight, because you will essentially be watering it down and adding bubbles to it, hence the name. The best spritzer wine will be a bit sour towards the end, and will contain very little sulphur (basically, the more sulphur it has, the shittier the taste, but the longer the shelf life). So don't be looking at the aged wines and such, since that's not what we're after.

The best wine for a Spritzer is either Haložan or Janževec, in Slovenia at least. I doubt you've heard of either, but what makes them special is that they're blended and made from various sorts of grapes. That's what you want in a spritzer. From what I've heard, Haložan is available in America to a certain extent, so try to grab a bottle since it will not be expensive and give it a try. Otherwise, just pick a few bottles at the local store which you think will be ideal, and chances are, at least one of them will be fine.

The drink itself is meant to be refreshing, and is usually drunk from either a 0,2 or 0,3 litre glass. Want a party where everyone drinks a little more? Mix in the smaller cups, so that you can salute more times and drink more of them.
Want a relaxed family evening? Go for the bigger glass, and drink it slowly. Just make sure it's cold in either case.

PS. If the wine you used has next to no sulphur, you will not have a hangover from this drink. I hope you can now see why it's so popular here in Europe ;)

• @johnsons