Sangria, oh my oh my. I made a gallon of sangria last week for our Father’s Day dinner at youngest Daughter’s home. It would rock your socks, and (it did all week, there was some left over for nice, chilled sangria).
A story to tell. Back in the old life, back on the coast, three years ago we left, sold our home and moved up to this country. I knew the move was imminent, the house was sold. We had a beautiful cabin that was used for many things, like raising chicks, smiling and making wine when chicks were not in there. It had heat, water, linoleum floor, and a double sink. And my Sister and I made wine, comin’ out our ears. We got the Costco wine kits, and we brewed and brewed for many moons. I was preparing for a time when I knew I would not have room to make wine. I made lots of wine, bottled it in the big 1.5 ltr bottles and the 750 ml bottles. When we moved, those boxes of wine bottles, full of lovely red, merlot and cabernet savigaun (spelling) was brought with us. I stored the wine in oldest Daughter’s back room and took what I needed to keep my wine reserves in good order, smiling again.
About 2 weeks ago, I was cleaning out the back room, making room for more preserving in bottles that I was doing. I found a box, a beautiful box of 12 – 750 ml bottles, red, wine from the coastal work. Yes....over three years old. Surely it would taste like gasoline. This type of wine kit is not meant for long term storage, but it was misplaced and long forgotten. Opened a bottle. Blick. Awful, horrible, probably was like gasoline. Pour the glass back in the bottle. Didn’t want to waste it. Now what? OK, took the case of wine to my home and aerated that bottle of wine with a little device that was given to me. Horrible. Gick. Still tasted bad. OK. So what do you do with 12 bottles of wine that could probably motorize a car? Hmmmm....remember back on the coast that my Sister’s Husband always made sangria for us. He would gather the fresh strawberries and raspberries we grew and would brew us a lovely brew. Let’s try that, I know I have some old fruit, still in our freezer, from the coast days. Go figure that. But I do. No strawberries, but a couple of bags of blueberries and raspberries I had frozen.
So to the freezer. Had already gone to the store and got “stuff”. Yes. I see a couple bags of OLD, OLD blueberries, the bag said 08 and the raspberries, the bag said 09. Boy, wonder how those never got munched up, but that is OK.
Took said berries out of the freezer. Put them in a bowl to thaw. Of course, when I freeze stuff in regular freezer bags, when the product melts the liquid that is in the bags some how comes out and is in the bottom of the bowl. How on earth can that happen, I don’t know. But always thaw store bought freezer bags in a container (this does not happen with my food saver bags, so only freeze with my food saver system now). So ya, took 3 of the bottles of the red wine gasoline. Put that into a beautiful gallon jug, I like those big bottles, so useful, tried and true.
I cut up 2 limes, 2 lemons, and two oranges. Put them in with the wine. Took the berries and juice. Put that into the wine. Now I know how sour raspberries are, and how nice sangria is with a little sweetener. So I got ½ cup of sugar and made a slurry with hot water and poured that in too. Then in goes the old, old, old blueberries and old, old raspberries. Let that sit outside in the warm sunshine for the day. Then I put that gallon of juice (yep, almost up to the gallon mark) up to Daughter’s house. But don’t like to transport glass, so I put the nectar into a nice food grade 2 gallon white bucket. I get buckets from our IGA that they use in their bakery. Clean them up and make mountains of food products in those buckets. I speak to when I am making salsas and things in the summer from garden harvest. Those buckets are the perfect storage containers for mixing and such stuff. Yes....brought that 2 gallon bucket up to Daughter’s home. Purchased some club soda, yep, club soda, and then put that into the mixture. And then put a ladle in it and we drank to our hearts content. It was like something else I have never tasted. I think it was the old berries. Maybe like old roosters, the more they age, the more taste they have, laughing here now. Ya. So not all the sangria was drank, a good part of it, but lots came home. I let the bucket stay outside, I didn’t have room for that bucket in my fridge. The next morning I picked up handfuls of the fruit and squeezed all the juice back into the sangria. The fruit left over was almost bone dry when I was done. Don’t want to waste anything here.
That sangria left over stuff went into a decanter into my fridge. Oh and let me tell you, sangria is even better when chilled and the fruit is removed. I don’t like chunkies in my drinks. So that was my sangria, the ingredients were:
Blueberries
Raspberries
Oranges
Limes
Lemons
Wine, red
Club soda
I think the club soda really did a marvelous work and wonder in there. It is gone. Time to get on and make some more I guess. Beautiful topic, conjures up lovely cool summer time drinks. Have a wonderful day, CynthiaM.
its nice for something different, because you know, I have never ever had popcorn for supper---- OR just totally fed my kid a huge bowl of bits and bits with coloured fishie crackers and a revel for supper. nope. I didnt do that AT ALL 
.....AAA ??
