I was in Spain over Spring break, and I had some Sangria for the first time. It was pretty tasty, and I’ve heard that it’s pretty easy to make. I’m sure some of you have got some mean Sangria recipes, so how 'bout it?
For me the key is peaches. Use three of them, each cut into about six pieces. If peaches aren’t in season that tells you it’s not a good time for sangria either. Summertime is good for both peaches & sangria. I also use two entire oranges, one juiced & the other cut into slices. A sliced lemon if desired. An ounce & a half of brandy. Three tbsp of sugar. Wine of the Jumilla region in Spain always works great (one bottle). Let the sangria sit as long as possible before serving, preferably 12 hours. With this recipe there’s no need to add club soda or anything fizzy, but you may if you wish.
One without peaches:
1 lime, 1 lemon, 1 orange
1 cup of water
1.5 cups of sugar
Red wine
Club Soda
Boil the water & sugar until totally dissolved. Slice the fruit so you have round, flat thin pieces. Pour the sugar-water over the fruit, and refrigerate at least four hours, preferably overnight.
Remove the fruit from the water and put it into a pitcher. Use one cup of the remaining sugar-water mixture from the fruit and add to pitcher. Depending on your tastes, add wine. I only add one cup, you can add 2 or even 3 if you like it headier. Add club soda to taste. Add a tray of ice. Mix well. Enjoy.
Now you make me want to have some.
Since they print it out on cards to take home, I guess it’s OK to list the recipe from La Bodega (caution: sound) in Vancouver :
1 lemon
1 orange
1/2 apple
1 bottle red wine
1 1/2oz brandy
1 1/2 oz Triple Sec
2oz lemonade
2oz orange juice
6oz soda or 7-up
Peel orange and lemon carefully, keeping peel to decorate. Slice apple,orange and lemon in large punch bowl; mix them with all the liquids. Stir and add ice cubes, letting the peel hang from the bowl.
I’d probably bang it all into the fridge sans ice and let it meld together.
Or from America’s Test Kitchen:
With sangria all you really need to do is make sure that it’s sweet, has red wine in it, and has fruit in it. Pour in a bit of rum or liquer if you want, but don’t overthink it. Just raid your fruit drawer, dice up what you find, dump it into some fruity red wine along with some sugar, and chill. Oh yeah, make sure you have several pitchers and no one is driving, and spend all afternoon drinking it while sitting outside on a nice day.
I like to skip the mixing of red wine and club soda and just use Lambrusco instead. This way you can’t water it down too much. Then, proceed with the above mentioned ideas, especially **Stentor’s. **
Years ago, my favorite Mexican place in Mountain View - Beto’s Casa Blanca - served a drop dead sangria. Totally unlike the traditional Spanish recipe though.
I finally figured out his secret - a couple of cans of Kerns Strawberry and Peach nectar. I also used fresh OJ, Pineapple & a bit of grapefruit juice - and the cheapest red wine short of Thunderbird. Always ended up less than 50% wine.
Every now and then a little Kerns Mango & papaya nectar.
We got so hooked we even turned it into ice cubes to avoid further dilution.
Thanks for all of the ideas. I didn’t know sangria was often served with club soda.
From Peg Bracken’s “I Hate to Cook Almanack”
First, find thyself a quart of ruby wine–
Not Kitchen Burgundy, not yet * too* fine–
A quart of sparkling soda cometh next
Plus juice of lemons (2), an’ be thou vex’t,
But tartness unrelieved, let sugar try
It’s gentle blandishments to molify
Thy sorely puckered palate–half a cup
Is adequate. So add and stir it up.
Next, oranges! Thou needest but a few–
One half a dozen fat ones will suffice.
Of juice itself, a gen’rous cup wiill do,
Forgetting not the roundly lucent slice
To charm the thirsty eye (for wise men know
"Tis the eye that leads the trusting tongue) And so,
Well armed 'gainst summer angst, thou shalt not brood.
But, beaming, lift they rub glass. Salud!
Ruby glass. :smack: