At Txori, the Basque-style tapas bar in Belltown, there is a drink called a kalimotxo ($3 during happy hour).

I first became acquainted with the kalimotxo as a teenager, when I drank it with punky Basque teenagers squatting in the alleys of San Sebastián in Northern Spain. There they use Don Simon red wine, a ubiquitous Spanish table wine boxed in a tetra pak, and Coca-Cola.

This is how you make a kalimotxo in Spain: You buy a two-liter bottle of Coke. You swill half of the Coke, you pour in the red wine, you shake well, you sit in a circle and pass the bottle around along with a few Lucky Strikes. (But only if the American is buying. Otherwise it’s going to be Drum tobacco rollies.) You get chased by cops trying to clear the cobblestone streets of teenage riffraff. You build a fire on the beach, you stay up until sunrise. You wish you could stay in San Sebastián forever. You return to American suburbia. You read The Sun Also Rises five times over the next year.

Txori’s version is more grown up off course, the bar adds a twist of lemon and serves the drink in an actual glass, and there is no tetra pak involved. Order one along with a couple of pintxos —if you harbor any nostalgia about Spanish food, don’t miss the Manchego cheese that has been preserved in olive oil, bay leaves, and peppercorns. It actually tastes the way sheep smell, as it should.

The squid in its own ink is also delightful.
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Want to know where to get what? Read more about Seattle’s signature drinks.