Juicy, delicious homemade SANGRIA!!

On your way to a refreshing day!

Gather your fruit!

Get yourself a nice deep pitcher! I like a clear one so that you can see all the fruit.

Sangria is definitely a place for experimenting, go traditional with cinnamon sticks and brandy or put your own twist on it and add watermelon schnapps and fresh mango!

Making a delicious and refreshing pitcher of Sangria is easy as pie! Actually, it's much MUCH easier!

I've been experimenting with sangria recipes for years now and have discovered that you really can't go wrong. (Are you starting to sense a theme here?) I love dishes and drinks that are fun to play with and hard to screw up! Playing around with the easy stuff will help build your kitchen confidence so when it comes time to make things like Beef Bourguignon you'll have no problem channelling your inner Julia Child!

The following is a very loose recipe. I just add ingredients until it tastes the way I like it to, some people like a sweeter sangria, some like more of an effervescent sangria, it's totally up to you! I like this one!

INGREDIENTS:

6 Cups bottle of Red Wine 

2  Cups or more Peach Schnapps

1 Cup Fruit Juice

1/2 Cup Soda Water (only if serving immediatley)

1 or 3 Oranges, apples, pears, peaches (whatever you'd like)

a handful or 2 of fresh berries

Garnish with fresh mint sprigs and drink it!!

Cut thick slices of oranges, lemons, limes and large chunks of apples, peaches, pears for a more stimulating presentation!

CUT UP YOUR FRUIT!

Some people like to cut their fruit into very small cubes, I don't like this method for two reasons...first, the large beautiful slices are more visually stimulating when seen thru the glass pitcher (presentation is always huge no matter what you're making!) and secondly, it's a lot easier to suck that juice down if you don't have to sift it thru all the tiny pieces!

Now choose your fruit.  Again, you really can't go wrong here. I like to include a variety of oranges, lemons, limes, peaches, pears or apples. And always feel free to throw in mango, pineapples, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, or even watermelon!

Now for the booze!! Start off with a decent red wine. No need to spend top dollar here because it'll just get lost with all of the other wonderful flavors. But don't go too cheap either. I like to stay around $10 for one of the big 1.5L bottles, like a Rex Goliath or Little Penguin Cab will do just fine. Some people stick strictly with chianti but I think this is another area where personal taste comes into play, experiment and see what you like best.

Many recipes call for triple sec but I think Peach Schnapps is much better and gives it a nice rich flavor.  Next add some type of juice, I like a little orange juice or a can of pineapple, peach, pear or mango jumex. Again, just try it and see what you like, I've used limeade too and it was delicious! The beauty of sangria is that you can add whatever fruit or juice you have around the house and it's gonna taste great!

If adding berries always wait until the end, that way they don't get destroyed when you're stirring it up and tweaking your flavor!

If serving immediately, add a little sparkling water or ginger ale to give it a lil spunk! If I'm just going to keep it in the fridge for a week, I leave it out.

Garnish with a fresh sprig o mint and suck it down!!