Nick spent a summer during his university years working in a popular Toronto restaurant. The place was renowned for their large outdoor patio, which meant cold summery cocktails were a major offering. Part of Nick’s job was to mix up the non-alcoholic ingredients for the very popular Sangria. He still makes a version of that same recipe these days, increasing or decreasing the amounts of ingredients depending on the size of the group.
Sangria, which can be made many different ways, began as something served in the sunny climates of Spain and Portugal. In fact, it is named for the Spanish and Portuguese word for ‘bloodletting’, due to the red colour that the inclusion of red wine gives to the traditional recipe. (Thanks Wikipedia.)
While some people also make it with white or rose wines and use all kinds of different fruits, you can see that Nick sticks with red.
I really like the way he makes it and if the quickly emptying pitchers at the parties for which he has made it are any indication, I’m not the only one. His version includes fresh seasonal berries, juicy citrus fruits, orange juice, soda water some rum, along with a bottle of red wine.
You could consider passing around some spoons while serving this, as you’ll want to eat that fruit. Hope you try it out this summer!
Nick’s Berry Delicious Sangria
Ingredients
- 1 x 750 ml bottle of dry red wine (about 3 1/4 cups) – a less expensive bottle is fine for this
- 1/2 cup rum (vodka works too)
- 1 to 2 cups of soda water, depending on your taste.
- 1/2 cup orange juice
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 unpeeled orange, sliced about 1/4 inch thick and the slices cut into quarters.
- 1/2 each unpeeled lemon and lime, or a whole one of either, prepared the same way as the orange.
- 1 cup fresh berries, based on what’s in season. We used Strawberries, Blueberries, Raspberries and (pitted) Cherries.
Instructions
Combine everything in a large pitcher and stir until sugar is dissolved. (The stirring will beat the fruit up a bit causing them to release their juices.)
Serve with ice.
Description
Red wine sangria
Ingredients part 2
Instructions part 2
Description part 2
Ingredients part 3
Instructions part 3
Description part 3
Ingredients part 4
Instructions part 4
Description part 4
He made a double recipe of this last Saturday when we had some friends over for an afternoon barbecue. I’ll show you photos of that little party on Monday. In the meantime, I hope you have a great weekend.
xo loulou
