Picnic drinks

More gets drunk on a blanket in the sun than indoors. Allow one and a half litres per person for an afternoon, at least half of it plain water, and calculate drinks of 20 cl instead of the 12.5 cl you pour indoors, because no one pours exactly the right amount into an outdoor cup. A one-and-a-half-litre jug is then good for about seven glasses and therefore for three to four people. It is better to take two smaller bottles than one large one: whatever you open will become lukewarm, while the rest stays cold at the bottom of the bag. And remember that everything you take with you also has to come back, so an empty jug is more pleasant on the way home than a half-full bottle.

One jug saves you the whole hassle of filling individual glasses on a blanket that is not level. Allow eight 12.5 cl glasses per litre, so one and a half litres is a reasonable starting point for six people. Keep to a simple ratio: for one part spirits, use just over three parts juice or tea. Prepare the base without ice and sparkling water, fill the jug or decanter three-quarters full and leave the rest for what will be added on the spot. A dispenser with a tap is more convenient once you have more than eight people, because no one has to lift it.

Without a cool box, you can get quite far with three things. Freeze flat ice packs and place them at the bottom of the bag, with the bottles lying flat on top; cold air sinks, so the top works less well. Wrap a wet tea towel around the bottle and place it in the wind: the evaporating water noticeably cools the bottle, and you can wet the towel again on the way. And put the bottle in the shade instead of in the sun on the grass, or bury it halfway in cool sand. You can cool a jug fastest in a bucket with both ice and water, because water conducts heat better than ice alone.

Freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice loses its fresh aroma within a few hours and becomes bland; in a warm bag, this happens even faster. So squeeze the juice just before setting off and take it with you in a small bottle, or bring whole wedges and squeeze them on the spot. Peel left in a drink for too long also gives it a bitter note, so only add slices when you are ready to pour. A citrus juicer extracts the juice without seeds and without squeezing the peel.

Plastic glasses that stack inside one another take up no more space in a bag than a single glass, and afterwards they can simply be washed instead of thrown away. There are also stackable models in real glass, in the stackable glasses collection, but they belong on the garden table. A carafe or bottle with a stopper is the other half of the story: it keeps the contents sealed, so nothing sloshes out while you're on the move and no leaf or wasp gets in. A screw-cap bottle does the same and is lighter; you put the carafe down once you sit down.

A picnic often ends with a trip home, and then it's nice to have more than water on offer. The same tea or lemonade from the carafe is one option, and there are also recipes made especially for this: view the Virgin Mojito, the alcohol-free Spritz or the mocktails. Kids' cocktails are ready for children, and Crodino is a bitter non-alcoholic aperitif. Pour it into the same glass as everyone else. NIX18: no 18, no alcohol.