Which drink should you pair with your shisha?

Spirits and cigars, coffee and cigarettes: these pairings come up often, but the drinks that go with a shisha are rarely discussed. Yet that combination matters just as much. Here are a few ideas to help you choose which drink to serve alongside your shisha.

Mint tea: the classic

This is a tradition. Mint tea and shisha are seen as natural companions. Hot or iced, its menthol notes sit well with the flavours of shisha tobacco.

Carefully brewed as it is in the countries of origin, mint tea is a reliable match for a shisha. Fresh and light, it balances the warmth of the smoke, and the roundness of its notes softens the sometimes rough edges of the tobacco.

Coffee and cocktails

As it travelled beyond the Arab world, the shisha came to be paired with other drinks. In France, for instance, many hookah users like to have a strong black coffee alongside. It is purely a matter of taste.

For lighter moments, some cocktails are also said to go well with a shisha, fruit-flavoured rum and sangria among them.

Another way of combining drinks and shishas

Who says the drink has to sit next to the shisha rather than form part of it? Some users pour a sweet, flavoured drink into the vase of the shisha. This adds fresh flavours to those of the tobacco.

Drinks with or without alcohol also colour the vase. That result can of course be obtained with plain colouring. Adding fresh fruit to the liquid can intensify the taste. It is also worth knowing that putting fruit juice in the bowl increases the amount of smoke, a detail regular users will not have missed.