With the summer, one of the most recognized drinks around the worlds makes its appearance: Sangria.
The Mediterranean diet is one of the symbols of Spain. Dishes like the Spanish omelette, stew or the Valencian paella are known in every place around the world, as much as sangria. Sangria is an alcoholic wine-based drink. And it has to be pretty cold served, with fruits, cinnamon and sugar. But as everything evolves, the sangria has been adapting to the tastes of different people from different cultures around the world.
So, how can you prepare a good sangria?
Possibly, following the traditional recipe is maybe the easiest version of all. At least, it is the one that we, with our wines from Baronía de Turís, use summer after summer. The main ingredient of sangria is wine; a good one, usually red, although you can find sangria with white wine too. These days, you can find different recipes, even ones where the principal ingredient is cava -sparkling white wine-, for example. But today we’re going to talk about the traditional Spanish sangria.
For the preparation of a traditional sangria with wine, you will need…
- Of course, a bottle of wine. We recommend you Barón de Turís Joven or Castillo de Turís.
- Around a can of soda (33cl). Another option is an orange or lemon soft drink.
- Lemon juice or orange juice with a spring of lemon, adding slices of these fruits to the drink.
- 2 peaches and 1 apple, peel off and cut in medium pieces.
- Half a cinnamon stick
- 2 big spoons of sugar
- A lot of ice
You will need a big jar where all the ingredients would fit. After putting the wine on the jar, you will add the rest of the ingredients bit by bit, starting from the lemon or orange juice and the soda or soft drink.
After them, add the sugar and mix it well until it dissolves in the drink. You have to avoid the sugar settling at the bottom of the jar. Because of that, it’s common to serve this drink with a wooden spoon on the jar. This is useful to keep the fruit for getting at the bottom of the jar and to stir the drink from time to time.
At the end add the solid ingredients: the cinnamon stick and the slices of fruit.
The key to a good traditional sangria is patience.
After we have the mix done, we have to wait at least two hours until the fruits macerate well with the wine and add their scents to this delicious drink. A lot of people recommend leaving the sangria a whole day macerating, but this option is risky because it can cause fermentation on the fruit. During this time of “settle” for the drink, la sangria takes that special fruity and sweet taste mixed with the bittersweet flavour from the red wine.
When the moment to serve it arrives, the best way to do it is to put some ice cubes in the jar and mix it well again, to consume it very cold. Like this, we’ll have a delicious and very refreshing drink.
The sangria was born in the south of Spain, around 1800. Even if the why of the origin is not clear enough, the where is pretty pointed in the history. It takes part of the Iberian culture because it’s presented in Portugal too. If you want to know more about its origin, we recommend this article in Spanish from La Vanguardia.
A magnific drink to refresh ourselves on the hottest summer days that are around the corner.
