Summer drinks: Calamansiade, tinto de verano, ginger tea, halo-halo

Every year around July 4 weekend, I take a trip up north to visit friends and family. This year the weather at my uncle's house was particularly blistering; I could almost taste the heat in the dusty, dry air.

Fortunately, my aunt had an escape plan: Sweet, tangy, icy cold tinto de verano, made with lemonade and an entire bottle of red wine.

In honor of the occasion and the heat, I give you four of my favorite summer drinks.

If you haven't yet experienced the sweet lemony-limey tartness of a calamansi, try this before you squeeze one onto a plate of pancit.

Calamansi-ade
1 cup calamansi juice (20 or so calamansi, squeezed)
1 quart water
Sugar to taste

Mix all ingredients and sweeten to taste. Add more calamansi juice if you prefer it tart.
If you want it fizzy, or if you're using it to make tinto de verano, use 2 cups water and 2 cups club soda instead of 1 quart water.

I first tried tinto de verano in Spain, where it's cheaper than a bottle of water and plentiful. The soda they use is a Spanish variety of 7-Up, which is much less sweet and more lemon-lime flavored.
Still haven't tried this with a bottle of Bartenura (or Manishewitz, for that matter), but I suspect the result would be deliriously refreshing.

Tinto de verano
1 bottle red wine
1 liter lemon-lime soda

Mix all ingredients and chill before serving. If you like, you can substitute calamansiade, orangeade, lemonade, for half of the soda.

When it got really hot, sometimes my lola would make something similar to Eliyahu's ima's ginger tea below. She served it cold instead of hot, though both ways work wonders when you're feeling sick. Ginger's palliative properties are finite, however; drinking more than a few cups at a time will upset your stomach.

Kili-Kili Tea (hot ginger tea)
Kosher recipe inspired by Ima

ORGANIC INGREDIENTS

BROWN SUGAR
WATER
GINGER
LEMONS

1. wash ingredients with clean water
2. dice ginger
3. boil water, then add ginger, simmering for ten minutes
4. slice lemons and squeeze
5. strain boiling ginger-water, then halo-halo with lemon juice
6. include kosher sugar
7. pour into glass and consume kili-kili power-tea

After I've had my fill of ginger tea and still need some way to sober up, or just want a quick, cold snack, I whip up some halo-halo. While an ice shaver would be ideal, taking out the week's stresses on a defenseless Ziploc bag still manages to satisfy. There are as many variations on this as there are people who love it, but below are the things I like to put on mine.

Halo-halo
Ice, shaved or crushed
Mung beans, in syrup
Palm nuts, in syrup
Langka (jackfruit)
Almond jelly
Mochi
Condensed milk
Coconut shavings for topping

Drizzle some condensed milk into an empty glass. Put about half an inch of crushed ice in the bottom.
Put in a layer of mung beans, draining off some of the syrup. Top with a quarter inch or so of ice and drizzle with condensed milk.
Continue in a similar manner with the rest of the ingredients. I don't usually top my mochi with ice, preferring instead to drizzle condensed milk and sprinkle coconut shavings all over the top. Mix-mix everything together (or not), and enjoy with a spoon and possibly a straw for the bottom.

Stay cool!

Tagged drink summer
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