Tradizioni Culinarie Continued

Although the Mediterranean food is awesomely great I think I just can't miss out the drinks part... Although most coffee in Italy comes from South America, Italy is the first country to come to mind when you mention coffee. Although the beans are grown elsewhere, Italy is considered the home of coffee and is where many of the beans are roasted, where the espresso machines are made and where making the perfect espresso, cappuccino or latte has been elevated to a high artform.


Image by Olga


But along with coffee it is definitely worth to mention some other drinks very typical of the region. The absolute favourite I tried is called Spritz! It is a typical Veneto drink, tasty, bittersweet and wonderfully refreshing! Here is a quick recipe in case you feel you wanna try it out (I especially recommend it to all campari lovers!):

1/3 prosecco, /3 campari, 1/3 soda
Stir with ice in an old fashioned glass. Decoration: a slice of orange and a big olive.


Image by Olga

You can find a lot of sparkling wines from the family of prosecco in Venice, and along with Spritz another very popular cocktail is Bellini, which is also sold ready - in bottles. The recipe can be found here.


Image by Olga

One of the interesting experiences is bying 'vino sfuso' or 'bulk wine'. This basically means that you go to the wine shop with your own bottle and purchase wine by liter - the variety depends on the shop - usually these are local wines of course - and the quality is very good!


Image by Olga

Finally it would be totally improper not to mention Limonchello - lemon liqueur mainly produced in Southern Italy. It is bright yellow in color, sweet and lemony, but not sour since it contains no lemon juice.


Image by Olga

6 comments:

Διάττων said...

Eventhough i'm a person who doesn't like to drink, i dare say that as Italy, Greece has also good drinks and wines too...

Good evening my friend...

Floss said...

That all sounds wonderful. I tend to stick to wine, and leave the other alcoholic drinks alone, but I would be interested to at least try all the other drinks you've described!

The Italian teacher at my school has stuck a very funny Italian cartoon on our coffee machine. It shows a large boardroom-meeting, where someone asks: 'Would anyone like coffee?' The reply of each board member is: 'yes, please!'

The same scene is repeated in Italy. Here, each member of the board orders a specific variety and style of coffee... For about 20 people, there are 20 different ways of drinking your coffee!

raquel ferreira said...

hey,

try this: limon juice (natural)with a splash of coffee and lots off ice. we call it in lisbon "mazagran"....

trishie said...

i LOVE limoncello...dranks lots of it when i was in italy!

Olga said...

Hey Guys and thanks for coming over...

Floss, hehe, that is definitely a fun poster, I can only come up with 10 varieties or so ;)

Raquel, I'm definitely going to try this out when in Portugal...can't wait!

Michela said...

Hi Olga!
Thank you for sending me the link to this lovely post... I'm glad you enjoyed your stay in Venice and "la dolce vita, gli spritz, il caffè.."!
So you're a globetrotter! I envy you so much!
Warm wishes,

Michela

P.S. Unfortunately food stored in the shop-windows is not so fresh..You can find fresh food only on the fish- and fruit and vegetables stalls!