Below are a collection of my personal Sangria Recipes… Think of them as a Gateway to your own Sangria Designs.
If you want to use them word for word, you honour me. But if you want to chop and change the ingredients, feel free. That’s the best bit about this post: It’s all about you! – Except my recipes… They’re about me!
So Sangria’s are traditionally a Spanish drink, and are a kind of grey area when it comes to cocktails as it is a traditional way of serving wine and fruit. However in recent years it has been more acceptable to tweak sangria recipes to make them more accessible for the wider crowds. Whilst you won’t find many sangria’s on your local pub/cocktail bar’s menus, they are fantastic centrepieces for your private events. And the best thing about these sangria’s is that you can tweak the recipes indefinitely to suit your own tastes.
One of several simple Sangria recipes is as follows:
1 ½ cups of rum
750ml (1 bottle) dry Red Wine
1 cup orange juice
½ cup white granular sugar
1 lemon
1 lime
1 orange
Optional: Selection of orchard fruits (plums, pears, apples, peaches & Nectarines etc…)
This recipe whilst seemingly complicated can be broken down into a simple; easy to follow method that you can transfer to almost all sangria’s you make:
1) Chill the rum, orange juice and wine (yes I know its red but trust me you want it chilled).
2) Prepare the fruit. Slice the citrus fruits and halve/quarter the orchard fruits.
3) Add the rum, sugar and fruit into a pitcher, mixing in the sugar a little.
4) Leave in the fridge for a couple of hours for the flavours to mix well.
5) Shortly before serving, gently crush the fruit and stir in the red wine. Adjusting the sweetness to your tastes (add more sugar if it’s too dry for you).
Following these instructions should allow you to create perfectly fantastic tasting Sangria mixes every time.
My first taste of sangria was a red wine, vodka and amaretto mix. As you can imagine it was more a student ‘get drunk quick’ recipe, and whilst it did its job, nobody seemed to enjoying the taste, which is a real shame considering some of the alcohol going into the drink. So the next time I had a party (my University leaving party in fact) I made it my mission to include a refreshing summery sangria that not only got people drunk, but actually tasted fantastic.
I started by stripping the sangria recipe’s found online back to the basics: Wine, a spirit and Fruit. These are the 3 most important ingredients to any sangria. I don’t like red wine in general, so I swapped it out for a medium priced (£4.99-7.99) Pinot Grigio (White) wine. This instantly meant no matter how chilled the mix became the wines taste would only improve (seeing as the general consensus is to serve white wine chilled and red wine at room temperature).
Then I dealt with the spirit:
Technically rum is the classic ingredient and I still believe it works well, especially with white wine. Using a combination of white, golden and dark rums I created layers in the sangria within the rum.
Then using a host of orchard and citrus fruits I bulked out the mix and then topped it up just before serving with a 2L bottle of lemonade. This created a sparkling, refreshing sangria that I found worked better with alcohol used.
The recipe was as follows:
750ml (1 bottle) Pinot Grigio (White) wine
250ml Orange Juice
250ml Cranberry Juice
250ml Pineapple Juice
1 cup of white sugar
500ml White Rum
350ml Golden Rum
250ml Dark Navy Rum
2L (1 bottle) Lemonade
Fruits: 2 x Oranges, 3 x Limes, 3 x Lemons, 3 x Plums, 3 x Peaches, 3 x Apples, 3 x Pears & 1 x Cucumber.
This fruit was sliced, halved, quartered, diced and shredded (cucumber) allowing for quick absorption of the alcohol.
Now I would suggest on sticking to the 5 steps of the recipe at the top of this post, but in this case I could only prepare it 1hr in advance. So to chill the ingredients whilst they mixed, I added 1KG of shop bought ice. This was purely to chill the mixture before serving. Also as a side note, I added the lemonade just before serving, so as the drink kept its fizz.
This ‘white-wine’ sangria recipe might seem slightly complicated but when you look at it, all you have to do is cut out the stuff you don’t want. I had to cater for around 10-15 people but if you have less, I would suggest on cutting out at least half the rum. Using just white rum is not only economical for your bank balance, but also responsible too. This recipe is for enjoyment not a route to satisfy an incessant need to just get drunk.
White wine sangrias are becoming more and more popular, both because of their taste and because they mix better with the fruits used. They are easier to prepare and give a more British feel to this otherwise Spanish drink. Don’t get me wrong, if you like red wine based sangrias then that’s great, but more and more people are heading towards the arguably easier to drink white wine based sangrias.
A simple quick to make White wine Sangria perfect for summer nights would be as follows:
750ml (1 bottle) White Wine
1 ½ cups of white rum
1 ½ cups of orange juice
½ cup of white sugar
1 lemon, lime and orange
Optional: Selection of orchard fruits (apples, pears, plums etc.) to taste.
Top up with either sparkling wine or lemonade.
Top Tips: For further customisation, use your favourite wine (Pinot Grigio’s, Chardonnay’s and Rose wines work equally as well as each other). Also use different fruits. Don’t restrict yourself to the citrus, add some different flavours, try soft berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries etc…). And finally why not try using your favourite mixers? Cola’s do not work very well, but different fruit soda’s such as Fanta, Sprite and Vimto all work very well, and add a little extra flavour to the sangria. It’s all about your personal touch, make the sangria something you like, but make it so that the people drinking it will want more. Most importantly, enjoy the experience, from buying the wine, to making the mix to drinking it. It’s all part of the experience…
Other recipes for white wine sangrias can be found on these websites:
Google search for Classic White wine Sangria’s:
Google search for classic Spanish sangria’s:
For a quick, easy & light red wine sangria try this recipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/sangria_93847
Why not check out this great blog for a Rainbow Sangria:
http://21nogluten.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/somewhere-over-the-rainbow-sangria/
P.S. On a final note, I would just like to say that whilst I generally use Pinot Grigio in the recipes, it was only because that’s what was on offer at the time. I tend to find Chardonnay wines (especially Kumala) make for better additions to the sangria, mainly because they have fruitier bouquets. Also Prosecco is better as a sparkling wine topper than fancy champagne. Revert to my post on champagne/sparkling wine for more information:
The Fervent Shaker 