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.
The wine this week is a complete wild card. We were driving down the road, near Guanacaste, Costa Rica, and saw a roadside stand with a sign for wine. Well we had to stop here but really didn’t know what we’d find. There was a little kid that ran over to the car and said we could get 1000 for 3000. We eventually figured out that the 3000 was the price, converts to about $6 US. We gladly paid and were handed a previously used soda bottle with a white cloudy liquid. When I asked which fruit is used for this wine, the boy pointed over at a palm tree in the distance.
In order to wrap up 2014, we both took a look through the blog entries to find our favorites. I chose my wines by those that I either tried to buy again or continued to talk about long after tasting it. Neil found wines that he either really enjoyed on its own or due to the transformation of the wine with the cheese. Click on the wines below to see the original pairing and the wine tasting notes.
In order to celebrate Christmas we came up with our top cheeses of 2014. See the list below:
Over the weekend we tried our hands at being cheese makers. Armed with our kit from Belle Chèvre, http://www.bellechevre.com, we closely read the directions and took on the challenge. Something funny was that it advised cleaning your kitchen so you have all utensils and plenty of space, they must know the size of our kitchen. We knew it might take a whole day even though the directions said it was only 2 steps. Keeping all of this in mind we got started at 1pm.