How to surive the heat? A delicious Italian cocktail, naturally.

The multi-talented Jesse Browner, author of the forthcoming Everything Happens Today, was kind enough to share his recipe for a heat wave appropriate cocktail.

Happy Friday!!

Some years ago, my wife and I were in Rome visiting friends, when we were invited to a birthday party for a person we didn’t know. We followed the directions we were given and ended up in a tiny piazza behind the Campo dei Fiori. With the exception of a dozen haphazardly parked mopeds and vans, the party – catered on long planks set up on sawhorses and covered in white tablecloths – took up the entire piazza. Believe it or not, the moon was full and musicians serenaded the crowd on accordions and lutes. It was that kind of evening, and extended deep into the morning. Neither my wife nor I remember much of what was eaten or said, but two things stand out in our minds even now: the endless, voluble laughter, and the sgroppino. On this, the hottest of many very hot days, the memory of that sgroppino, served in tall chilled glasses many hours after midnight, is almost refreshing in and of itself enough to banish the heat.

 

Sgroppino:

 

    1 cup chilled Prosecco

    2 tablespoons chilled vodka

    1/3 cup frozen lemon sorbet

    1/4 teaspoon chopped fresh mint leaves

 

Pour the Prosecco and vodka into 2 tall glasses or champagne flutes. Spoon a scoop of sorbet into each glass. Sprinkle with mint and serve immediately.