Duncan Day-Myron
As spring starts to wind down and summer approaches, better, cheaper and often local fruits are going to be showing up in grocery stores and at markets. You can get fruits and vegetables year round, of course, but everything just gets a little better in the summer.
There’s fruit salads, jams, pies, preserves: countless ways to put these great fruits to use. But few more delicious and none more alcoholic than a good pitcher of sangria.
The wonder of sangria is, like the beautiful Caesar that I wrote about last week, it’s endless variety. There are a few standard essentials that you can’t get very far without, but beyond that the sky’s the limit. Even within those standards, unlike the Caesar, there’s a lot of creativity you can express.
Sangria is, typically, nothing more than red wine, fruits, and something to sweeten it, usually orange juice but could be simple syrup, honey or soft drinks.
The wine you choose is ultimately up to you. A sangria is probably going to be about as good as the wine you use. That said, spending a lot of money on a vintage only to make a cocktail out of it is a bit of a waste. Stick to the middle of the shelf, between the $10 to $20 range, and you won’t be let down. The sweetness is up to you. I tend to go for a lighter wine and then add less juice to it. The French Beaujolais, seldom more than $15 a bottle, is light and fruity and doesn’t require a lot else added to it to make it feel more like sangria and less like wine. It also takes chilling well.
White wines are also a fine option. Although less popular, white wine sangria is increasingly available. White wines don’t tend to need as much additional sweetness, so any juice you add can usually be replaced with soda water, or a smaller amount of sugar or simple syrup.
For the fruit, as is a general rule almost any time you’re buying fruit, stick to what’s in season. We’re on the brink of strawberry season in Ontario, and a wine soaked strawberry at the bottom of your glass is a magnificent thing. Local cherries will be on the shelves in a matter of weeks, with peaches, plums and the rest mostly in July. Imported pineapples and kiwis are also starting to look like they’re in a lot better shape than they had been over the winter. Any fruit you like will work fine, but consider sour to sweet flavours you’re combining, as well as textures. Some, like berries, tend to lose some of their integrity with the alcohol, while others like pineapple and melon hold up pretty well. Lighter soft fruits, such as peaches and apricots, tend to work better for white sangria, their flavours and sweetness a little less imparting as darker fruits and berries.
Whatever you choose to add, mixing up a pitcher of sangria is a great for dinner parties or smaller gatherings and a great way to use up all the great summer fruits you can find.
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