Personal Spicebush Sangria

Fancy a sangria for one? Self-care can look like many things including a movie with a

nice meal and a fancy, low effort drink (or two). Sangria, a mix of fruit, syrup, and wine

coming from Spanish cuisine, is one of the best ways to use seasonal produce and fight

off the summer heat, or transport you to the beach. Enjoy this with tacos, tapas, middle

eastern or mediterranean food, or even just a sandwich; however, please use white

wine or hard cider with this recipe. Red wines have too much tannin and will be too

bitter for this.

The goal with this recipe is to mix the fruit with sugar and let it macerate until it becomes

very syrupy and soft. Then you mix the wine with that and add the spicebush syrup to

finish it off. Macerating the fruit can be done in the cup or a big bowl, depending on how

many servings you want to make.

Ingredients:

• Chilled white wine or hard cider

• Chopped seasonal fruit

• White or light brown sugar

• 1 jar of spicebush syrup

Process:

1. Put the wine or cider in the fridge to chill

2. Chop fruit into relatively small pieces, don’t overthink this if the pieces look small

   to you it’s good enough

3. Mix chopped fruit with a couple teaspoons of sugar then let sit for an hour to

   overnight in the fridge

   a. If I have a small 8oz bowl, like a desert size bowl not a soup bowl, filled

   with fruit, I would use about 3 teaspoons of sugar

4. Scoop desired amount of fruit in a cup, along with some of the liquid then pour

   chilled wine or cider overtop to fill the glass

5. Pour spicebush syrup in to sweeten to taste, make sure to mix the sangria and

   taste as you go

Wine recommendations:

• French wines like a Chardonnay

• Spanish Albariño wines

  
  

Fruit recommendations:

• Peaches

• Pears

• Apples

• Oranges

• Cherries

• Cranberries

Notes:

• Why add sugar and syrup? Because the sugar breaks down the fruit so it more

  easily adds flavor to your drink and the syrup adds a nice, spiced taste and the

  final sweetness that rounds out your drink

• You can use frozen fruit too, mix that with some sugar and let it thaw. Once soft,

  you can go ahead and make your drink and continue with the recipe

• The fruits listed above are only recommendations, but honestly get creative.

  Whatever fruits you have access to and in whatever combinations you like will

  work wonderfully

• This recipe scales up really easily and is very forgiving. Just cut up however

  much fruit you’d like and add in the sugar then mix. 1/3 of a cup of sugar to 2lbs

  of fruit is a good ratio, let it sit overnight and then scoop that into cups, pour the

  wine in, and then add the syrup.

• If you macerate the fruit in the cup you’re drinking out of, you’ll have less dishes

  to clean