It was a hot afternoon in Grenada and we had wandered from the narrow alleys of the old town over to a small square full of people enjoying their tapas and drinks under the shade of tall trees. We found an empty table and took it promptly. The place was a hive of activity and the thrum of people talking and laughing filled the air. Just about everyone other than us was local. We had wandered into the more mundane part of town, where locals were going on with their lives and were out for lunch on a workday. No one paid any heed to us and that is the sign I look for when scouting for a place to try local food. This was also the afternoon we discovered Tinto de Verano too. It was not listed on the menu and yet all around us people had this lovely looking drink we wanted to try as well.
We asked the waiter to get us what the folks at the table next to us were having. There is something about the hot summer sun, the pace of Spain in that weather and some other intangibles that I can't describe that make this the perfect drink. One is not enough as we were to find out. There are super market brands of the Tinto, each restaurant has its one variant of it, they are all delightful but some are truly standouts. That afternoon in Grenada we had the standout kind. The waiter explained it had more than the standard ingredients one mind find in a recipe. A bit of vermouth was involved among other things. Sometimes perfection can be encapsulated in a moment like that - the balance of all elements to make an afternoon sublimely memorable.
Comments