Kalimotxo
Spanish drink of cheap red wine and Coca-Cola, mixed half-and-half over ice. Invented in the Basque Country in 1972; now ubiquitous at festivals.
Kalimotxo (also spelled calimocho) is the Basque-Spanish bar drink of cheap red wine and Coca-Cola, mixed roughly half-and-half over ice in a tall plastic cup. The combination sounds wrong and tastes surprisingly good: the cola softens the rough tannins of the wine, the wine takes the edge off the cola's sweetness, and the whole thing drinks like a slightly fizzy adult slushy. The drink was invented in 1972 at a fiesta in Algorta (a small town in Bizkaia, Basque Country) when a batch of wine for sale turned bad and the organisers mixed it with cola to mask the off flavours. The name was coined by the same crew. Standard fiesta and student-party drink across Spain; not what you order at a serious restaurant, but a real cultural marker.
How it's served
In a tall plastic cup or a pint glass, ice, half cheap red wine, half Coca-Cola, optionally a slice of lemon. Always cold. Drunk fast and in volume; not contemplated. Festival drink, summer fiesta drink, student-party drink. Almost never on a restaurant menu.
Regional variation
The Basque spelling kalimotxo is the original. The Castilian Spanish calimocho is the same drink, slightly more common in Madrid and central Spain. Mexico has a near-identical drink called Bautizo. Variations with Diet Coke, Pepsi or local cola brands all work; the original Algorta recipe specifies Coca-Cola.
- Origin
- Algorta, Basque Country (1972)
- Etymology
- Coined in 1972 at the Puerto Viejo fiesta in Algorta, Bizkaia. The Basque-style spelling is kalimotxo; the Castilian Spanish is calimocho.
- Also called
- calimocho
Frequently asked
What is kalimotxo?
A Spanish drink of cheap red wine and Coca-Cola mixed half-and-half over ice. Invented in 1972 at a fiesta in Algorta, Basque Country, when bad wine got rescued by adding cola. Now ubiquitous at festivals and student parties across Spain. The combination tastes better than it sounds.
What kind of wine goes in kalimotxo?
Cheap red. The whole point is that the cola masks rough flavours, so good wine would be wasted on it. Box wine, supermarket tempranillo, anything that costs €2-4 a litre. Using a Rioja Gran Reserva would be both expensive and pointless. The original 1972 batch was specifically wine that had gone bad.
Who drinks kalimotxo in Spain?
Mostly students, festival-goers and partygoers. Almost never seen at sit-down restaurants; never on a fine-dining wine list. Standard order at any Spanish fiesta where plastic cups are stacked behind the bar, especially during the Basque summer fiesta circuit and the September Mercè festival in Barcelona.
Related terms
- SangríaSpanish wine punch of red wine, chopped fruit, sugar, brandy and citrus, served cold by the jug. Touristy in Spain, hugely popular abroad.
- TempranilloSpain's most-planted red grape. The backbone of Rioja and Ribera del Duero. Goes by half a dozen local names across the country.
- ClaraSpanish beer mixed with lemon-lime soda (clara con Casera) or lemonade. Lighter, lower-alcohol, the default Spanish summer drink.