Introducing Manzanilla: the saltier sibling of Fino sherry

With her tattoos and undercut, drinks consultant Christina Schneider makes sherry punk.

Fascinated by bone-dry, mineral Manzanilla — the saltier sibling of Fino sherry — Schneider relishes so-called ‘shim drinks’. These are lower-alcohol cocktails which focus on flavour rather than alcoholic vigour (a shim originally being a carpentry term for a small, levelling wedge) and which tend to foreground vermouth, sake or port rather than gin or vodka.

I join Schneider, who designed the drinks list at Spitalfields’ Thai restaurant Som Saa, on a cocktail tour of our capital centring on the reviving wines of Manzanilla producer La Guita. Together, we visited venues outside of the usual canon of tapas bars associated with Spain.

We begin at Soho’s naughty-seeming Mandrake Hotel, replete with the glitzy taxidermy confusion of a kangaroo-peacock flying over the bar. Here, mixologist Andrea Benvegna’s ‘El Tomate de Sanlucar’ mingles Manzanilla with clarified tomato water, mezcal and orange blossom salt, finished with a briny olive. The result seems as clean as angels’ tears, yet as smoky as Satan’s aftershave.

Meanwhile, at Fulham’s Michelin-starred, game-centric The Harwood Arms, the ‘La Alcachofa’, which Schneider created, blends Primrose Hill tonic water with Manzanilla and, for too long forgotten, brazenly bitter Cynar, an artichoke liqueur the hue of classic car oil. The result is effortlessly drinkable. Finally, at east London’s Satan’s Whiskers, the tangy Manzanilla is stirred with mature vermouth and chocolate and orange bitters in Geoff Robinson’s festive ‘Bronsolino’, pepped by hip-hop.

‘Manzanilla is awesome fairy dust and probably the best value wine in world,’ says Schneider, having proved the moreish drink’s versatility.