Crema de orujo might not have the beautiful people-filled TV commercials, but it’s every bit as delicious as the latest fancy Baileys creation. Made from post-squashed-to-death grapes, orujo or aguardiente is the most shudderingly-blow-your-mouth-off spirit on the planet, with a 50 % alcohol content (that’s 100º proof!). Tamed with cream, coffee, cocoa and caramel, though, and [...]
With Christmas on the horizon it’s time to break out of your conservative imbibery, to take a long hard look at all those jazzy bottles lined up on the barman’s shelves – and dare to drink something different. Watch out over the next couple of weeks for regular doses of useless but possibly inspiring tipple-related [...]
And for those of you who have requested a post about that other Catalan Christmas tradition, the Tió: go here – you get all the other Spanish Christmas stuff too. Go here for Part 2 and here for Part 3. By the way: it’s tió (teeOH) meaning log, not tío (as in uncle /guy’ – [...]
Every Christmas I say to myself: I must write a post about the caganers. And every Christmas, by the time I get my act together, every other Catalunya-related blogger and feature writer has already done it. Anyway, this time, here we go. The caganer is a small figure, traditionally depicted as a Catalan peasant, in, [...]
Grape swallowing gene. Yes, yes, you know all about stuffing your mouth full of grapes but did you know that this New Year’s Eve custom only goes back to the beginning of the last century? Apparently, it was dreamed up by Valencia grape-growers in 1909 as a way of off-loading an extra-bumper crop. Although the [...]
