It is definitely bye bye to long nights, cold and shivering and welcome back spring and summer. it is time for spring clean, light clothes and sandals. It also time to welcome friends in the back garden for a barbecue and a drink to calm down our thirst. 

Salmorejo is a classical cold soup from Cordoba, but we can also have it as a drink when the sun is at its warmest, because it’s cool and refreshing. For this one, you’ll need 1 kilogramme of red, ripe tomatoes, 200 grammes of stale bread, olive oil, salt, vinegar and cloves of garlic to one’s likes some people don’t like garlic and others love it. So, it’s up to you how many cloves of garlic you wish to add up.

You’ve to blend the tomatoes with a glass of cold water. Then, add the garlic cloves, salt to taste, olive oil, vinegar and the stale bread that has to put in water to soak for few minutes. This cold soup or refreshing drink admits many sorts of toppings -Spanish ham in small chunks, onion, slices of salted and dried cod that would have been in water to remove the salt. It has to be served cold and with a drizzle of good olive oil. 

Sangria is another classic as soon as it starts being warm. However, there has always been a sort of argument when it comes to make it. Some people will add gin, whiskey, brandy, but then it won’t be a sangria. It’ll be something else that won’t help in the hottest weather. A traditional sangria is made with red wine (not necessarily a good and expensive one) lemon, a choice of summery fruit of which peaches, pears and bananas are a must for their smell and flavour, sugar and two sticks of cinnamon that will be boiled in lemon juice and added in the wine. No more and no less. Cooling it down and serve. 

It is said that Mojito was created in Cuba at the time of the ban of alcohol in the US when many Americans would travel to the island to drink. They didn’t have any other alcoholic drink, but brown and white rum, but they started to create it. As far as I am concerned, it is my favourite one when I’m entertaining at home in summery evenings to have after the diner or when going out to cool down in the open air. It’s easy enough to make a jar like the one above. For a good and refreshing Mojito, you’ll need 4 ounces of of old rum, fresh lime juice, few leaves of mint, two spoonfuls of sugar, 4 ice cubes, soda water and a slice of lemon or blades of mint for decoration.

As a matter of fact, it is said that to calm down thirst there’s nothing like a cup of tea or coffee. Here, some people argue on the way to make tea and will also say that adding a dash of cold milk in the tea is quite an English invention, that it isn’t the way it’s made in Arabic countries where they are the biggest drinkers of this popular beverage. Having lived in England, I quite like adding a dash of milk, but when I went to Morocco I really enjoyed their tea rituals and the few mint leaves in it. Being green tea a bit sour, the sugar and the mint helps to make it a really enjoyable and cooling drink.