GASTRONORMOUS

This white sangria I made for a bar-b-que I attended last weekend was inspired by a recipe my husband brought back from a long ago trip to Spain. He stayed in a seaside town called Gijón where they made sangria using cheap red village wine, fruit, and orange soda. Yes, I am talkin’ Fanta. Elsewhere in Spain called tinto con naranja, it was served with fruit and called sangria in Gijón.

Red wine and Fanta sounds unsophisticated, or maybe even unpleasant, but incorporated into sangria it is a surprisingly tasty concoction (I can’t say the same for another popular drink in spain: calimocho, or red wine and coca-cola). We served it at a party once–everybody loved it and you can’t imagine their surprise when told the constituents of the beverage!

I don’t use Fanta in this white sangria recipe, but never fear, it is lowbrow-fabulous, or, shall we say, Rustic.

The trick to bringing sangria to a hot-weather event (it was in the 90’s Saturday). Is to cut up and freeze all the fruit the night before, and then mix the sangria right before leaving. The fruit acts to chill the sangria without watering it down. I served this in a 4 liter plastic pitcher with a spout at the bottom for easy pouring. I brought along a ladle to scoop fruit of the top.

“Rustic” White Sangria

about 8 cups of fruit.
(I used: 1 large orange, 1 bunch seedless red grapes, 1 bunch seedless white grapes, 1 peach, 1 nectarine, 1 pear, 1 apple.)
Plus: 2 limes
2.5 liters of cheap white wine
1 cup triple sec (or other orange liquor)
.5 liters seltzer or club soda

The night before: Cut all the fruit into small wedges. DO NOT PEEL THE FRUIT–even the citrus! Throw it all into a big ziploc bag. If using apples and/or pears, save those for last so that when you throw them in the bag the acid from the other fruits will prevent them from browning. Cut 1.5 limes into wedges and add to bag. Squeeze the juice out of the remaining half of lime over the fruit. Seal bag, then manipulate it to the mix the fruit around inside. Put the bag in the coldest part of the freezer.

The day of: dump the frozen fruit into the pitcher or other container you are using. Pour the other ingredients over it. Give it a taste and adjust as necessary. Now, go put on some sunblock and get out the door!

Notes:

• Bring extra wine and soda with you if you can. There will likely be a lot of fruit left in the container when you have gone through the liquid. I promise you your guests will appreciate a refill. Alternatively: enjoy a drunken fruit salad when all the liquid is gone!
• If you use a super dry wine, this might be good (and more true to its Español inspiration) with a clear flavored soda, like white grape soda.
• You could use some liquor other than orange. Peach schnapps might work, though the resultant flavor might induce a Bartles & Jaymes flashback. This may or may not be a good thing.
• Full disclosure: I used a 5 liter box of Almaden white wine for this recipe! A box! Not anything I would dream of serving straight up, to guests or even just myself. Sounds crazy, but look at it from the flip side: do you really want to violate a good bottle of wine with fruit and soda? ¡Claro que no!

Here the white sangria is served in the familiar red plastic SOLO cup. How rustic.

7/4/08 Postscript: See my spectacular new 4th of July, red, white, and blue sangria recipe here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 2:02 pm and is filed under Food musings, Party Food, Recipes, Wine Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.