5 cocktails to drink during Florentine Summer

Finally, summer is coming in Florence! We can go out at night, we have a drink with our friends, we live the Florentine nights! But, where to go?

Night life in Florence concentrates above all in some city areas. Students, citizens and tourists pour out in the streets, pubs and clubs in Piazza della Signoria, Piazza Santa Croce and the Oltrarno area. These are the most entertaining places in Florence. Here you can also have many different and tasty cocktails.

Which cocktail should you choose? Well, here is a list of cocktails that are perfect to drink in summer!

PIÑA COLADA

It is a very sweet cocktail with rum, pineapple juice and coconut milk. For this cocktail we must thank Don Ramon Portas Mingot, a bartender who, in Puerto Rico in 1963, trying to create a fruity cocktail, created this one.

To prepare this cocktail you will need:

ice
1 part of rum
2 parts of coconut milk
2 parts of pineapple juice
garnish: a slice of orange or pinepple

Shake all the ingredients, add ice and decorate with the orange.

LONG ISLAND ICED TEA

This cocktail was born during Prohibition, in the 30’s, when you cannot sell or produce any kind of alcoholic drink. People looked for many ways to hide alcohol and to drink without being discovered: in this case, they added kola to make the drink seem a tea.

For a great Long Island Iced Tea you will need:

6 ice cubes
1/2 part of Gin
1/2 part of Vodka
1/2 part of Cointreau
1/2 part of Tequila
1/2 part of Light Rum
1/2 tea spoon of sugar syrup
1 part of lemon juice
Kola
1 slice of lemon to decorate

Shake all the spirits, add ice and then kola. Decorate with lemon.

An interesting and tasty variation is the Japanese Iced Tea, for which you need to substitute kola with Lemonsoda and Cointreau with Midori.

MOJITO

The Mojito is a Cuban cocktail made with rum, cane sugar, lime juice, mint leaves and sparkling water. There is an Italian version of it, the Mojitaly, for which you need to substitute rum with Branca Menta. Mojito is a very summer cocktail, in fact, in winter, mint might be a little bitter because it is still unripe. The birth of this cocktail is due to a barman of a very famous bar in Habana frequented by Hemingway, who was, by the way, a great lover of Mojito.

To make a good Mojito:

5/10 of rum
5/10 of tonic water
20 ml of lime juice
cane sugar
mint leaves and ice

Put the mint leaves in a glass, squeeze the lime and add two coffee spoons of cane sugar. Mash all, pour the ice, the rum and then the tonic water. Here it is…a fantastic Mojito!

SEX ON THE BEACH

This is an alcoholic drink which allows many variations. Let’s see two of them. The first one is the official version accepted by the International Bartenders Association. It is made with vodka, peach schnapps, orange juice, cranberry juice. The second one is with vodka, Chambord, Midori Melon, pineapple juice and cranberry juice. The first glass of this cocktail was made in Florida, in 1987, by a barman during a contest organised in occasion of the Spring Break.

The IBA version you need:

3 ice cubes

1/2 part of Vodka

1/2 part of peach Vodka

1 part of cranberry juice

1 part of orange juice

Shake all the ingredients together and decorate with fresh fruit. Enjoy your drink!

SPRITZ

It seems that the origin of this Italian cocktail, drunk above all during happy hours, is due to the soldiers of the Austrian Empire, who added sparkling water to wine to reduce the strength of Venetian wines. The word spritz, in fact, seems to come from the German word spritzen, which means splash, like splashing water in the wine. Curious, isn’t it?

The original recipe requires:

6 cl of Prosecco

4 of di Aperol or other bitters

Soda water

Serve the Spritz in a glass full of ice and decorate with a slice of orange.

 

 

 

 

 

 

RAINBOW COCKTAIL

But the tastiest cocktail that you can drink during the summer is the Raibow Cocktail, served at the Grand Hotel Adriatico bar. This colorful cocktail is made of strawberry pulp, orange juice, blue curaçao and vodka and it will be accompanied with multicolored canapes. A rainbow to drink and eat! You must taste it!