Entertain with style this summer with this easy sangria recipe.  Add fruit and liquor to red wine for a refreshing beverage your party guests will love.

I love entertaining in the summer.  Our slower pace of life during the summer means I have more time to cook, clean, and entertain.  The trick to entertaining is to spend as little time as possible in the kitchen once your guests have arrived.  The more I can prep ahead and set on auto pilot, the more time I get to spend with my guests.  That’s why I love cooking corn in the slow cooker or making fried ice cream for a crowd the day before.  Another great item to put on every party menu is sangria.  Sangria is best when prepared a good 24 hours ahead of time to let the flavors meld together so it’s the perfect party drink.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying sangria recipes over the years and this is the one I keep coming back to.  It’s simple, easy and doesn’t contain any extra sugar.  A lot of sangria recipes call for adding sugar, simple syrup or even lemon-lime soda.  But I really don’t want or need all that extra sugar so this sangria gets its flavor from the fruit and liquor.  You can use any kind of red wine you want and really any kind of fruit.  I went with oranges, limes and apples this time around.  Peaches, blackberries, lemons – all would be great in this recipe. I also use Triple Sec and brandy in the recipe.  Almost every recipe I’ve seen for traditional sangria calls for on or the other so I use both.

Making the sangria is easy.  Dump all the ingredients in to a big pitcher or glass jar and refrigerate for a good 24 hours before serving.   Aside from slicing up your fruit, this recipe takes all of 2 minutes to make.

You can use wine at room temperature or chilled.  I’ve been chilling wine in our Haier wine cellar.   No more wine bottles taking up precious refrigerator space.   The wine cellar is small enough to hide in the corner of our dining room.  I chilled the red wine for the sangria in the cellar first to get a head start on the chilling.  We don’t normally drink our red wines chilled, but in the hot summer, cold wine of any kind is refreshing.

Just in case some one isn’t a fan of sangria or red wine,  I added a few bottles of white wine to the cellar to chill.  It has dual zones so we can keep whites and reds at the appropriate temperatures.  The door has an electronic control to set the temperatures and the interior light makes it easy to see what wine I have chilled.

After the sangria sits overnight, it’s ready to serve.   I poured the sangria from the jar to a nice pitcher to serve at our family dinner.

 

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