Christian and I have a special fondness for Spain and Sangria…so when we got married in 2005 we decided to make our own Red & White Sangria to complement our beer & wine open bar. The day before our wedding (and only hours before our wedding-eve beach BBQ!) I wrangled up some of my best girlfriends and together we made 30 gallons of Sangria…half red and half white.
Thinking back that seems crazy to do less than 24 hours before saying I Do…I mean the damage that cutting up all that citrus could have done to my nails alone! Ah, young, crazy, in love and with the eye on creating my perfect & highly personalized dream wedding (which it 100% turned out to be!). Love it! The two recipes for Red & White sangria below are the ones we used at our wedding…scaled up quite a bit of course. I hope you enjoy them and they bring you as much love, romance and fun as they have for us. ¡Salud!
Red Sangria
2 large juice oranges, washed; one orange sliced; remaining orange juiced
1 large lemon, washed and sliced
1 cup red seedless grapes (optional)
1 red apple cored and cut into 8-12 thin slices (optional)
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup Triple Sec
1 750 milliliter bottle of inexpensive, fruity medium-bodied red, wine (chilled) – inexpensive (but good quality) merlot is a good choice
Add sliced orange, lemon, (grapes if using) and sugar to a large pitcher. Mash gently with a wooden spoon until fruit releases some juice, but is not totally crushed, and sugar dissolves…about 1 minute. Stir in orange juice, Triple Sec, and wine.
Refrigerate for at least 2, but up to 12 hours. Add apple slices no more than 2 hours before serving. Right before serving, add 6-8 ice cubes and stir briskly to distribute settled fruit and pulp…then serve immediately
White Sangria:
3 TBS sugar
2 shots triple sec
3 shots mango juice
1 peach sliced
1 plum sliced (or substitute nectarines or apricots)
2 ripe green apples cored and cut into wedges
1 bottle white Rioja Spanish white wine or other dry white wine
1 pint raspberries (or substitute grapes)
Combine first three ingredients until sugar is dissolved. Add fruit (except raspberries if using) and then cover with 1 bottle of wine and chill for several hours
To serve, spoon fruits into glasses along with a few fresh raspberries and pour wine over top of the fruit. Top glasses of sangria off with a splash of soda water and serve (for the wedding we just mixed in all the fruit 1 hour before serving and skipped the soda water entirely)