[1] Blackberry cooler (photo courtesy FreidaFroo.Wordpress.com). [2] A peach wine cooler (here’s the recipe from TasteOfHome.com). [3] Watermelon cooler with green tea and white wine (photo courtesy Serendipitea.com). [4] Commercial wine coolers: the lowest common denominator (photo courtesy Majestic Brands).

WHAT’S A COOLER?

Short for wine cooler, a cooler is a tall drink typically made with wine, fruit juice and soda water (you can use any glasses you have).

It’s a less complex relative of sangria. Don’t like wine? Try the latest cooler incarnation, the beer cooler.

Modern coolers are refreshing summer drinks that trace their ancestry to hot-weather countries in ancient times.
 
HISTORY OF THE WINE COOLER

Wine-based drinks have long existed in the Mediterranean, the birthplace of wine. The earliest archaeological evidence of wine production found to date has been in Georgia (c. 6000 B.C.E.), Iran (c. 5000 B.C.E.), Greece (c. 4500 B.C.E.), and Armenia (c. 4100 B.C.E.).

The wine could be drunk straight or mixed with honey, spices or other ingredients, especially by the kitchen staff of rich households and at public drinking houses for the hoi polloi. It was a less sophisticated product than today’s wine, with no sophisticated fermentation or aging techniques. Thousands of years before stoppered glass bottles were invented, wine was stored in clay jars.

Flash forward to the present: Wine coolers have been sold commercially since the early 1980s [Source]. Bartles & Jaymes, a brand of E & J Gallo Winery.

The latter makes flavors dozens of flavors, including Strawberry Daiquiri, Fuzzy Navel, Margarita and Piña Colada.

However delicious these may sound, they were formerly made with wine that Wikipedia calls “the cheapest available grade,” since most of the wine flavor in obscured by the sugar and the fruit juice. According to Lucas J. Meeker of Meeker Vineyard in Sonoma County, domestic wine coolers were largely made from a base of apple wine.

Today, many bottled wine coolers have no wine. Because of a quadrupled excise tax levied on wine beginning in 1991, most brands replaced wine with cheaper malt. Bartles & Jaymes calls their revised product line a “flavored malt cooler.”

The malt, according to Meeker, renders the result more like beer but still largely the same: “a largely flavorless base beverage is combined with flavor and color additions, then carbonated and bottled.”
 
WINE COOLER RECIPE TEMPLATE

Blend your own recipe to find create your signature wine cooler. To develop your recipe, use a shot glass to combine 1/3 each of wine, juice and sparkling water.

Choose one from each group:

 
Here’s a recipe for a green tea cooler from fine tea purveyor Serendipitea:

Ingredients For 4 Tall Drinks

 
Preparation

1. PURÉE the watermelon and run it through a fine mesh sieve (yield about 1.5 cups juice).

2. WARM a teapot with a little hot water, discard, place the tea leaves in the pot, allowing heat of the pot to release the bouquet of the tea leaves.

3. HEAT water to below boiling (approximately 180°F). Steep 1 teaspoon (2.5 g/8 oz. cup) up to 3 minutes & refresh cup as desired. Vary the time according to taste with this caveat: steeping tea leaves beyond 3 minutes does not give you more flavor, only bitterness.
 
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*Try Albariño, Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, Gewurztraminer, Gruner Veltliner, Muscat, Pinot Gris/PinotGrigio or Sauvignon Blanc.
  

Watermelon is one of the edible geniuses in the Cucurbitaceae family, also called the gourd family. The most important family members comprise five genuses:

 
Non-edible members include:

 
Sweet melons have long been an anticipated summer treat. Pperhaps the most beloved is watermelon: sliced and eaten as hand fruit; sipped as juice, in cocktails, fruit soup and smoothies; made into dessert as fruit salads, popsicles and sorbets; grilled as a side; added to salsa; and so much more.

Today’s tip: Consider adding watermelon to your salads. It fits as easily into savory salads as sweet fruit salads.
 
WATERMELON SALAD INGREDIENTS

Mix and match watermelon with these ingredients:

 
Dressings

 
RECIPE: WATERMELON CAPRESE SALAD

This festive salad [photo #2] can be the appetizer or the fruit and cheese course. It was created by Gina Homolka of SkinnyTaste.com.

 
Ingredients For 8 Servings

 
Plus

 
Preparation

1. CUT 16 from the watermelon. Save the trimmed watermelon for another use.

[1] Watermelon and cucumber: cousins in a simple salad with red onion (photo courtesy WinesOfSicily.com). [2] An artistic version from Gina Homolka. See more of her inspired recipes and photos at SkinnyTaste.com. [3] Homemade balsamic glaze (photo courtesy EatBoutique.com). [4] Watermelon on the vine (photo by Fred Hsu | Wikipedia).

Balsamic glaze is balsamic vinegar reduced into a syrup.

It can be used on savory and sweet foods.

 
The better the balsamic vinegar, the better the glaze.
 
Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. BRING the vinegar to a boil in a small, heavy saucepan. Reduce to a simmer and cook until thick and syrupy, about 15 minutes. (The glaze will further thicken when it cools.)

2. REMOVE from the heat; taste and stir in the optional sweetener and salt. Let cool completely.

3. STORE in the fridge in an airtight jar.

 
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*Hard aged cheeses include Cheddar, Cheshire, Emmental, Gouda, Gruyère, Mimolette and Parmesan/Parimigiano Reggiano, among others. It is also delicious with Roquefort and other strong blues, and with over-ripe bloomy-rinded cheeses like Brie and Camembert.

[2] Gourmet S’mores made with a Petit Écolier chocolate-topped biscuit and a chocolate chocolate chip marshmallow (photo courtesy Plush Puffs gourmet marshmallows).

[3] No-Bake S’mores Pie (photo courtesy Brown Eyed Baker; here’s the recipe).

To make the basic S’mores sandwich cookie, you need one or two marshmallows, two graham crackers and a piece of chocolate bar to fit the grahams for each.

The marshmallow is toasted and placed on top of the chocolate and the bottom graham, followed by the top graham. The heat of the toasted marshmallow melts the chocolate into a gooey delight. Don’t forget the napkins.

We’ve got lots of favorite s’mores recipes (our list is below), but this year we’re having a S’mores party with a twist: fun substitutions.
 
 
SUBSTITUTES FOR THE CHOCOLATE BARS

 
 
SUBSTITUTES FOR THE GRAHAM CRACKERS

 
 
SUBSTITUTES FOR THE MARSHMALLOWS

 
 
ADD-ONS

 
 
THERE ARE RECIPES BELOW, BUT FIRST…some history.

We don’t know who invented S’mores, but the Girl Scouts certainly popularized them: The first published recipe is in their 1927 handbook.

S’mores around the campfire has been a happy tradition: a stick, a fire, two toasted marshmallows, a square of chocolate and two graham crackers get you a delicious chocolate marshmallow sandwich.

The combined flavors of toasted marshmallow, melty chocolate and crunchy grahams is oh-so-much tastier than the individual ingredients (or, to quote Aristotle, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts).

The name of the sandwich cookie comes from its addictive quality: You have no choice but to ask for “some more.”

But you don’t need a campfire, or even all of the classic ingredients, to celebrate with S’mores, as you’ll see below. Don’t have a heat source to melt marshmallows? Use Fluff or other marshmallow cream.
 
 
MORE S’MORES RECIPES

[5] Ice cream sandwich S’mores with S’mores ice cream—chocolate ice cream with pieces of marshmallows and graham crackers (photo courtesy Babble.com).

Check out these 25 different S’mores combinations.

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