Agua de Valencia cocktail

Photo by Gareth Lewis-Jones

It's the first Saturday of the month again, so time for another bubbles-based cocktail. 

In the UK, it has been a week of fabulous weather after several long months of cold.  If you've read a few of our blog posts or watched some of our videos, you'll know that we like a glass or something Spanish and this cocktail is a superb drink for warm weather, blue skies and the palpable heat on your skin.  The name 'Agua de Valencia' means 'Valencia Water'.  Water here means sparkling wine.  Sparkling wine spiked with both gin and vodka?  OK, now we're listening!

Incidentally, if you've never been to Valencia, we can absolutely recommend it.  The people are fantastically welcoming (especially if you order a drink in Valencian - a local dialect of Catalan), the food is incredible (various different parts of Spain lay claim to the historical origins of paella but, for us at Last But One Drinks, paella valencianca is the original and best!), and the drinks. . .  Well, they are perfect for the hot, coastal climate - and seem to work in other countries just as well on a summer's day.

Ingredients

7.5 ml gin (we prefer a London dry but it's very pleasant with a Spanish gin such as Nordés)

7.5 ml vodka

2.5 ml sugar syrup

37.5 ml fresh orange juice

120 ml dry cava or dry champagne

Orange twist

Method

Place the first four ingredients into a cocktail shaker and shake over ice for 10-15 seconds.

Double strain into a flute and top with the cava or champagne.  Garnish with the orange twist.

We like a glass of this at any time of the day.  We have friends who swear by it as a better brunch drink (AKA hangover cure) than a Mimosa or a Bloody Mary and others who drink it at 21.00 in the early evening (early for the Spanish at any rate) in Valencia.  We think it works well as a brunch drink but also as the drink needed as a quick pick-me-up at 17.00 on a hot day, before a pre-prandial aperitif.  That said, if we were ever to be in charge of arranging a wedding, this might well be what we were to serve the guests immediately after the ceremony.  A beautiful colour, fizz for celebration and two hard liquors for fun - what more could a couple (or, more importantly, the guests) want?