Granissat de cava

John has the perfect thing to see you through summer days, alcohol and ice – what could be better?

Published June 26, 2012

So, it’s summer and, depending on where you are (sorry, citizens of London), it’s roasting hot. A glass of nicely chilled sparkling wine would be just the ticket to cool you down, but wait there is something even better!

The recipe is simple, the decision to consume far too much of it is simple too. In fact the trickiest thing about this article was deciding where to put it. Is a granissat (liquid granita), food or drink?

However you want to classify it, they are fantastic things on hot summers days. Cold, refreshing, childish (memories of slush puppies), quick and easy to make, and just generally summery.

This granissat de cava has all of the above, plus the added advantage of being nice and alcoholic. Since I live in Barcelona the recipe calls for cava, but it could just as easily be prosecco, champagne, or any other semi-decent dry sparkling wine.

It’s this simple…

Ingredients

  • A bottle of dry cava
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 lemon

Optional

  • 4-6 fresh mint leaves

or

  • Handful of fresh strawberries

  1. Pour the bottle of wine into a shallow metal pan, that will fit into your freezer. The wider and shallower the pan, the faster it will freeze, and metal helps to keep the effervescence of the wine. Freeze it until it is solid, which is probably about 3 hours.

  2. While the wine is freezing, finely grate the zest of the lemon and then squeeze the juice out.

  3. Take the pan out of the freezer and break up the frozen wine with a fork, it will break up quite easily, but make sure that you scrape the big chunks from around the sides as well.

  4. Add the lemon zest and juice, together with the sugar, and give it all a good stir. You can add more sugar if you have a sweet tooth, but now would be the best time to do it.

  5. Put it back into the freezer for about another hour, or until it is fairly solid again.

  6. That’s it, one granissat de cava. At this point you can either serve it just as it is, or add optional ingredients before serving.

    A lot of people like to add finely torn mint leaves, but I prefer finely chopped pieces of strawberry.

    However you like it, take it out of the freezer, and break it up with a fork again to form small crystals, add anything you want to and put it into serving glasses.

  7. Leave it to stand for a few minutes, so that it melts slightly and consume through a straw!