What do you do when you have very average cava and guests arriving?

Do you pour your £6.00 fizz out while obscuring the label with a carefully placed tea towel, waiting for the grimaces? This will never work of course as once one person glimpses the poor quality foil word would get around like wildfire. Cheap cava foil looks awful. Thin, loose and listless, a real giveaway. Taste is directly linked to visual perception and expectation, so this cannot be good for the guest’s palates.

How do you uplift your lack of budget to delight your guests?

I was in exactly this situation recently and was thinking along the lines of ‘champagne’ cocktails.

I found an old bottle of creme de cassis (blackcurrants, alcohol and sugar at 16%ABV) and thought a kir royal (normally champagne and creme de cassis) would be perfect. It seems totally reasonable not to taint good champagne and use cava (which is made with the same method in Spain anyway). I would make the cocktails up in the kitchen and bring the glasses through on a tray. Nobody would know.

Then I remembered walking into a bar and ordering a kir (white wine and creme de cassis) the other day. The barman replied

"We don’t have that 'bro' but we have J20 instead"

J20?? So let’s work out the logic behind that response -

The barman had never heard or kir, but he does not know about this gaping hole in his knowledge of his only profession in life as he thinks kir is ‘kia’...short for ‘Kia-ora’. These days if a drink does not appear pre-programmed on the dumb touch screen till, it may as well have never existed, made extinct from the mainstream. He is in fact probably feeling smug to have worked out the apparent shortening of a well known fruit drink which he does not stock, and offers another brand instead in J20 . I did not think they made Kia-ora anymore, and so was surprised that is existed in the collective consciousness at all. Oh, and I am not his brother, but apparently I should be flattered to be perceived young and trendy enough to have received that term of endearment - despite being old enough to remember the 80s Kia-ora adverts.

I did not pursue the matter any further, and went straight back to his comfort zone of a gin and tonic.

Unfortunately my own bottle of creme de cassis was of unknown age (and undefined origin, probably a gift). It was opened and had been languishing at the back of a cupboard for years. I sniffed it. Smelt ok. I sipped it. Tasted ok.

I then googled ‘shelf life of creme de cassis’ and came back with nothing definitive, just loads of unsubstantiated waffle on forums.

So I needed another option. The classic champagne cocktail sprung to mind (bitters,sugar cube, brandy and champagne). I had no angostura bitters and no sugar cubes, so my quick version was cava, half a teaspoon of sugar and a dash brandy - in my experience people always overdo the brandy and sugar.

I ended up offering the guests both options but everyone chose the classic champagne cocktail. The kir royal was left alone (maybe they also thought it was fruit juice bro).

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