What is a Mistela? It depends where you look online* for the definition. We had heard that it was a cocktail made with wine. I’ve found a few websites that agree it’s a blend of unfermented grape juice and distilled alcohol but others do not mention wine being used. There are different wine grapes that are used including syrah, moscatel, grenache, and mollar. We tried it while we were in Ecuador but people have found it in Spain as well. Although we weren’t positive of the alcohol used in our cocktails we do know the fruits that were added.
This week’s WineAndCheeseFriday is Spanish with an Italian twist. When we were walking home from dinner last week we saw a small Italian shop with homemade cheese, Quo Vadis. We figured we should stop in this week to pick up some of their Queso Maduro to try with wine. After we paid for the cheese, we were talking with the owners and found out that they also make various fruit wines, limoncello, marmalades, chocolate, and smoked ham. It all looked so wonderful and we even had a chance to do some sampling. We figured we should go for the total package so we purchased an orange wine and marmellata de cebollas (onion jelly!) to have with our cheese.
We hit the road for WineAndCheeseFriday this week. While we were out a couple weeks ago, we walked passed a store called “Like Liquors and Lounge”, https://www.facebook.com/Like-Liquors-Lounge-223762377816761/?fref=photo. We decided to stop in that day and see what they had. It was a liquor store with a bar inside. We looked around and found some local whiskey to try and when we paid, the cashier told us you can buy wine, beer, liquor, etc and then sit down and drink whatever you bought. This seemed like a pretty fun idea so we headed there last night to grab a bottle of wine and check out the atmosphere! There was another store nearby that sold only wine and cheese so we picked up a cheese on the way there.