There´s no finer part of Spanish life than sitting on your patio or terrace and enjoying a sangria, especially if you´ve made one yourself.
Ignore the temptation for a cheap supermarket carton purchase and go instead for a bit of home creation, which will impress you and your friends.
You´ll get a flavour to remember and I´m certain that you will be tempted to experiment with various ingredients and permutations to get your own unique brand.
Needless to say, the better the ingredients, then the most impressive the final result will be.
Red wine is the base ingredient for sangria, and a cheap bottle will certainly do the trick. If you pay more for say a red Rioja, then the flavour level goes up.
Sangria can also be made with white wine, rose, cava or prosecco. The choice is down to you.
When it comes to traditional sangria, simple lemonade is often the most effective mixer., with the cloudy variety the most popular.
Orangeade soda or ginger beer – albeit in carefully controlled quantities – would work as carbonated additions alongside, or instead of, lemonade.
Or you can use still fruit juice such as blood orange, grape or apple juice, mixed with a little soda water if you prefer a fizzy finish.
You can use almost any fruit in sangria, although slices of orange or lemon are a common choice.
Consider the nature of your wine and also what soft mixer you're using – if you’re serving a cava sangria with light grape juice, summer berries may work better than astringent citrus, or a crisp and dry chardonnay could work with fresh apple.
Brandy is the most popular spirit to be added into the sangria mix over here, but vodka, rum, and all kinds of liqueurs make appearances as well.
A basic red wine-based sangria goes like this:-
Pour a standard bottle of red wine(750ml) into a pitcher and then take an orange and a lemon and cut up into wedges.
Squeeze the juice from the wedges into the pitcher, and then toss them in, along with two tablespoons of sugar and 1.5 fluid ounces of brandy(more if you want!). Stir gently until the sugar dissolves.
Cover the pitcher in plastic wrapping and let it cool overnight in your fridge.
Before serving, add a couple of cups of cloudy lemonade from your fridge, and add garnishing if required.
Hopefully, you will enjoy this mix, but you can ramp up any of the ingredients in the future, or try different spirits or fruit. The choice is yours!
