The tequila sunrise is a lovely, refreshing drink that I am sure is terribly healthy as it contains both fruit juice and alcohol. To mix one you will need:

A large glass
Freshly squeezed orange juice
A shot of tequila (Sauza Commemorativo is a personal favourite)
A dash of grenadine

Put the tequila in the glass, then fill it up with orange juice. Add the grenadine so it sinks to the bottom of the glass, you'll only need about a teaspoon full.

Soupy twist.

When walking around San Sebastian or Bilbao it is easy to be impressed at the very large number of bars that one can frequent. In the evenings most serve tapas (locally known as pintxos), and obviously one needs something to wash down these little morsels of goodness. You'll have to be honest when paying up, as you can order drinks and eat pintxos without being charged until you have finished and have to admit to how many drinks and pintxos pieces you have consumed.

The Basque country is a big producer of cider, and this is a good drink to go for when in a bar. They'll generally pour this from a great height into a tumbler until there is an inch or two in the bottom of the glass. The cider is generally flat, cloudy, dry and of reasonable quality. It is made in a fresh style rather than having prolonged cask ageing as lots of English ciders undergo. Unlike the scrumpy-type cloudy ciders it is not too alcoholic, so you can easily have a couple of glasses for lunch.

Gin and tonic is a popular drink, good gin is ubiquitous and cheap there. Again you'll be presented with a pint-sized tumbler which will be filled with ice and then the gin will be poured in until you say stop. Hooray! It is then topped up with tonic water. I suggest you order Tanqueray gin for your G&Ts as this is clearly the best gin. We stopped off in a booze merchant and got some for ten Euros a bottle.

The local white wine, Txacolí, is pretty basic stuff. It tastes a bit like Muscadet with which it shares a slight prickle of carbon dioxide. If you order this you'll get it served in the standard tumbler again usually poured in from a great height. The wine is really no great shakes, but it is a perfectly acceptable and refreshing drink.

In England drinking rosé wine is considered a bit girly, but there it is perfectly acceptable to be seen knocking back glass after glass of vinhos rosado. Again, most of the stuff served is at the 'EU wine lake'-end of the quality spectrum, but is generally fruity and refreshing on a warm evening's pintxos crawl.

Rioja is the nearest red wine region and this should worry you; Rioja is dreadful. The stuff served in bars is frighteningly awful, so avoid like the plague.

Drinking is very much part of the culture in the Basque country, so if you order Coca Cola when on a pintxos crawl you'll be given a funny look unless you order it mixed with red wine in which case it is called a kalimotxo (very popular with the youths).

This is another good that is on sale in Sainsbury's at the moment.

Duché de Longueville Cidre de récoltant Normany varietal cider "Gros Oeillet" 2005, 5%
The nose has a very over-ripe, almost mouldy, apple character; this is not a bad thing, though, the nose is very pleasing. It is reasonably sparkling, with a long finish of rich apple flavours. This is really good dry cider.

I am a big fan of good cider, this is a relative bargain from Sainsbury's. This is made by Westons in Herefordshire, who make some very good ciders.

Taste the Difference medium sweet cider, 5.5%
A characterful nose of ripe apple fruit. This smells quite complex for cider. The palate is lightly sparkling, with plenty of fruit and a lively refreshing finish. It is rich rather than sweet. It has a fruity finish of quite impressive length. Good cider.

Vie Shot orange, banana and carrot, Knorr
Lawks, this smells like cockatoo shit. It is really repellent. The taste reminds me of vomit from when one has been having too many orange-based cocktails. This is actively unpleasant and undrinkable.

Tomorrow I'll be meeting a friend who I have not seen for seven years. He works in St. James's so this is a perfect opportunity to go to Dukes hotel where they mix the best martinis in the world*.

Part of the amusement in having a martini at Dukes is the little ceremony they go through in order to mix one's drink. They bring a little table with the ingredients on it next to where you sit. Using a vinegar dropper they put a couple of drops of Vermouth into a frozen martini glass. They then fill it to the brim with frozen Tanqueray. Next a slice of lemon zest is squeezed over the glass and then ran around the rim. You can see the lemon oil in little iridescent pools on the surface of the martini.

You'll note I said Tanqueray, other spirits are available, but Tanqueray is best. I find it such a happy phrase to go in there and say, "Two Tanqueray martinis, please."

*New Yorker magazine said a few years back that Dukes was the best place to get a martini in the world. I have to say I have never had a better one, even on our trip to New York.

After my rants about the all-round goodness of low-alcohol wines you may think I'd hate this beast of a beer. I think this is quite balanced, although not really a light, refreshing drink. It is a Trappist monk beer. No wonder they don't talk, they must be too drunk.

The large lumps of dead yeast in the bottom of the bottle demonstrate that this is bottle-conditioned. Good. The white and red Chimay beers are good, but blue is my favourite. Indeed, Chimay Bleu is the only beer that has ever got me barred from a pub. The boozer was in Florence so I don't feel I am missing out by being barred. Chimay Bleu is also bottled in a 75cl bottle with a cork seal; this is known as Chimay Grande Reserve and it is intended for ageing. My advice is don't age it, it tastes bloody awful when it is old.

Chimay Bleu, 9%
Very dark brown colour. The nose is richly malty with alcohol sweetness definitely present. There is some bitterness to the palate, but it is really quite round and malty. The finish shows alcohol sweetness, but with the rich maltiness of the beer this doesn't seem out of balance.

This is not a real ale in a bottle, it is not bottle-conditioned. It is quite refreshing to drink whilst watching the cricket, though.

Timothy Taylor's Landlord Pale Ale, 4.1%
A darkish golden colour. This has a really hoppy nose, it smells really quite lively. The palate is refreshingly bitter with good malty flavours. It may not have the freshness and life of a bottle-conditioned beer, but it is a refreshing and pleasing drink.

I do like my beers to be quite bitter, and that certainly true of this. The draught version is really a significant step up in terms of liveliness and pleasure.

Yesterday I went on a booze cruise to Calais. In one of the large supermarkets we picked up some beer; this is one of the things we got.

Gueuze is an aged lambic beer from Brussels. Lambic is a beer that is fermented using the natural yeasts present in the place the beer is brewed. This is termed spontaneous fermentation. When fresh lambic is very acidic and lively, serious ageing is often required to make it palatable. This version has been aged in cask for two years before bottling. It is far from the most traditional Gueuze one could have; for that one needs to look for the producers Cantillon or Boon. This offering comes from the producer Lindemans.

Gueuze Foudroyante, 4%
Dark amber colour. A sweet nose of candied lemon peel, it is also quite orange-y. It is not especially complex. It tastes quite sweet and there is not the frightening acidity one generally seeks in lambic beers. The taste is very short and simple, it is almost bland. Perhaps I like my Gueuze to be far too scary in terms of intensity, but I find this to be quite dull. Not up to standard.