We’ll leave in the morning and come back in the evening.

In Madrid’s hot summers, Queen Mariana of Austria would survive the oppressive heat by drinking her favourite beverage, aloja. This drink, which few people are familiar with today, was so popular during the seventeenth century that a royal order was needed to restrict the shops where it was made and served to one every three doorways.

This drink made of honey spiced with ginger, cinnamon, white pepper, clove and nutmeg was supposed to be served chilled, so its main ingredient, cool water, had to be drawn from the Guadarrama mountains in the form of ice and brought down directly from the iceboxes on its peaks. The clean snow enhanced its flavour and made it more refreshing.

Today the snowdrifts in the Guadarrama mountains can only be spotted a few months of the year, and they are constantly retreating. The snow is melting and disappearing from the mountains, just like those ice blocks that travelled on the backs of mules to the capital. It is disappearing as the aloja shops did, as are the walls of the abandoned ice wells, which were replaced by the fridges in our kitchens. Today snow, once meant for the most discerning palates, is blown out artificially by cannons at mountain ski resorts.

In this People’s University session, we want to witness this last snow and visit one of the famous constructions designed to do the impossible: keep it cold. We’ll take the opposite route, this time taking the ice from the city to the mountains, and with what is left, we’ll make and savour our own aloja there.

Interested participants will be notified of the exact route and time via email.