A refreshing, citrus and bubbly fortified wine cocktail ∙ Build ∙ 2 min ∙ 5.4% ABV ∙
The Rebujito is a Spanish highball of Fino sherry lengthened with lemon-lime soda, built over ice in a tall glass.
Rebujito is a sherry highball from Andalusia, Spain, made by mixing fino or manzanilla sherry with lemon-lime soda. Its name comes from a Spanish word for mixing or jumbling together. The drink is closely associated with Andalusian ferias, and some accounts trace its first documented appearance to the Corpus Christi festival in Granada in 1985. It is best known as the signature drink of the Feria del Caballo in Jerez de la Frontera and the Feria de Abril in Seville.
Historians and drinks writers link the Rebujito to the 19th-century American Sherry Cobbler, a mix of sherry, citrus, sugar, and sparkling water that became hugely popular in Victorian-era England and, by extension, in the sherry-producing region of Jerez itself. A Jerez newspaper writer, José Luis Jiménez García, argued in 2007 that the Rebujito grew directly out of that earlier Sherry Cobbler tradition. Other drinks experts view the resemblance more loosely, as a natural convergence within the broader family of sherry-and-soda highballs. The Rebujito's popularity outside Andalusia grew from the mid-1990s onward, aided in part by promotional efforts from sherry producers seeking to introduce the wine to younger drinkers.
Fino sherry and lemon-lime soda such as Sprite or 7-Up: 75 ml sherry to 100 ml soda, over ice.
Crisp and dry, with a salty, nutty edge from the fino, softened by the sweet citrus fizz of the soda. The finish is short and clean.
Fino: a pale, bone-dry, slightly salty sherry aged under flor. Its savory edge is what keeps the drink from tasting like plain soda.
A Rebujito is about 5% ABV, which is roughly on par with beer. The lemon-lime soda dilutes the Fino sherry considerably, making it one of the lighter sherry-based drinks.
Rebujito is pronounced reh-boo-HEE-toh, with the stress on the third syllable, following standard Spanish pronunciation.
The name comes from a Spanish word for mixing or jumbling together, referring to how the sherry and soda are mixed in the glass.