If You Aren’t Mixing Red Wine With Cola, You Have Yet to Live Your Best Life

Red wine doesn’t exactly have a reputation for being a refreshing drink: It’s often associated with colder weather and heavy, meaty meals.

But mix the wine with a hefty pour of cola and it becomes the perfect summertime drink — boozy, refreshing and not overly sweet.

Called the kalimotxo (pronounced cal-ee-mo-cho), this combination of red wine and cola is a popular drink among teenagers in Spain, said Michael Gordon, the chef at BKW in Brooklyn, New York. “It’s an easy way to make red wine more palatable,” he said. “It’s kind of like their Smirnoff Ice.”

Kalimotxos are extremely easy to make: The beverage consists of equal parts cold red wine and cola, mixed together in a cup. That’s it. Some people like to add a splash of lemon too, the New York Times noted, but at its core, the kalimotxo is just a two-ingredient cocktail. Gordon recommended chilling the wine before mixing, even though this may feel counterintuitive.


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