Pop and red wine: Welcome to Spritzerland

Pop and red wine: Welcome to Spritzerland

SARAH MUSGRAVE, FreelancePublished: Saturday, January 26
The sip: Calimotxo
The price: $4.75 per glass
The smell: Sweet and bitter with a gentle whiff of alcohol; call it rum and Coke lite.
The look: It could be the world's favourite soft drink in a tumbler, poured over ice with a slice of lime, but somehow you know it's a cocktail.
The taste: Poor man's sangria. There's no fruit, but there is carbonation and there is sweetness in this throat-warming combo of half red wine and half Coca Cola.
The story: Calimotxo is popular in northern Spain, particularly Catalan and Basque country. It was supposedly popularized as a street drink in the 1970s, when a vendor at a festival was saddled with 2,000 litres of bad Rioja and came up with a secret ingredient to make it palatable.
It's often mixed in large batches at open-air get-togethers to share among friends - admittedly more toward the youthful end of the age spectrum - and for a while was even sold in prepared packages.
Of course, similar tactics have also been used of necessity by those who have grown up with a relative who makes his own wine - I'm not condoning the practice, but over the years my friends from LaSalle have convinced me that even the crudest plonk gets a new lease on life with a litre of Coke on hand.
The source: It's one of the bar offerings at restaurant/show venue/Spanish community club Sala Rosa (4848 St. Laurent Blvd., 514-844-4227, www.casadelpopolo.com).
The twist: Somehow the combination of white wine and pop gets to be known by the snobbier name of spritzer, while its red cousins seem decidedly more low-brow.

Origin information: montrealgazzette.com