The Art of Red Wine + Coca-Cola, Or How Sangria Is For Tourists
Remember, though we're all tourists somewhere. Some less serious summer sipping.
Before we talk about sangria, we must talk about the truth. I know that sangria conjures images of flamenco and bullfights and paella. But the reality is that Spanish people do not drink a lot of sangria. Sangria, in Spain, is mostly a drink for tourists.
To be clear, people in Spain do enjoy wine cocktails, and there is a whole universe of wine-plus-soda drinks that Spaniards love—which we will delve into below. Among them is the Calimocho (red wine mixed with Coca-Cola), the Rebujito (fino sherry mixed with 7-Up or Sprite and garnished with mint) and the Tinto de Verano (red wine mixed with 7-Up or Sprite and a squeeze of citrus). Yes, these drinks sound vaguely trashy, but trust me, they are delicious over ice on a hot day, and a good use of last night’s leftover wine.
Now, let’s talk about sangria, which was introduced to Americans at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. Almost six decades later, whatever sangria you are mixed at an American bar has long detached itself from the Iberian original. At this point, let’s just consider sangria to be some kind of Anglo-American concoction, shall we? Who cares how they do it Spain, amiright?
Still, I would like to make a case for quality sangria. My issue with the drink is that it’s almost always made incorrectly. Sangria is not simply chopped fruit dumped into cheap wine and left to turn soggy.
The most dramatic example of this was at my cousin’s wedding, almost two decades ago, on a gorgeous island in Puget Sound. On the sunny afternoon of the wedding, I was relaxing on the balcony of my hotel room when my mother came running up. “I think they need your help,” she said. “Your cousin is freaking out because they’re making her sangria for the reception all wrong.”
I had just started writing my drinks column for the Washington Post, and rarely saw what I did for a living as important. But here was my mother asking me to save the cocktail hour, or at the very least my cousin’s frayed nerves. Heroes do not always wear capes.
I swaggered over to the resort bar and found what looked like fruit cup in a pitcher. I delivered a brief class on how make a proper sangria for 300 guests. I am certain the bar staff did not appreciate my intervention, but my cousin was able to go get into her wedding dress, and it all worked out fine.
I suggested the same things on that wedding day as I will suggest to you:
True sangria should have a significant portion of brandy (or some other booze) and possibly a small amount of orange liqueur, such as Cointreau or Grand Marnier. You see a lot of recipes that replace the liqueur with simple syrup, but the liqueur will give better flavor.
For the wine, you certainly don’t want to use your single-vineyard Barolo or gran reserva Rioja, but you also don’t want to use garbage. A value red wine that’s fruity and not oaky, but still has a little structure works best.
For the brandy, I use Spanish brandy (aka Brandy de Jerez) such as Lepanto, Gran Duque d’Alba, or Cardenal Mendoza, because it’s generally a sweeter brandy. (You can experiment with younger Cognac or other brandies, though I might use a little more liqueur with those.)
So let’s make some sangria. We’re all tourists somewhere.
Basic Boozy Red Sangria
750 ml of red wine (fruity, young, not too oaky)
4 ounces of Brandy de Jerez
2 ounces of Cointreau or Grand Marnier
2 cups of chopped fruit (oranges, limes, grapefruits, berries, pears, peaches, etc.)
Ice for serving
Citrus wheels (orange, lemon, blood orange, grapefruit, etc.)
Combine all the ingredients except the ice and citrus wheels in a large pitcher and stir. Cover and let stand for 2 to 3 hours before serving or refrigerate overnight. Serve in wine glasses over ice, garnished with citrus wheels. Serves 8 to 10.
Thieves’ Punch
Still, if you really want to upgrade your wine cocktail game this summer, I’d like to suggest another sangria-like punch that is one of my go-to, easy-to-make pitcher drinks for a party. The Thieves’ Punch swaps out red wine for port and brandy for rum and it’s a flat-out crowd pleaser (particular if your crowd is a little boozier, as mine is).
Thieves’ Punch was created by my friend Duggan McDonnell, a (legendary? infamous?) San Francisco bartender. His original recipe calls for white rum, but I like to use cachaça (rum’s Brazilian cousin) because it’s funkier and sharper and stands up to the other strong flavors. If you use rum, I suggest a rhum agricole, made from fresh-pressed sugarcane juice. The simple syrup is slightly variable according to your taste and what sort of cachaça/rum you’re using—taste as you stir and add accordingly. This recipe calls for an eyebrow-raising amount of bitters, but don’t skimp on them: They keep things balanced.
16 ounces cachaça (or white rum)
5 ounces port (ruby or tawny)
10 ounces freshly squeezed lime juice (from about 5 limes)
3-4 ounces simple syrup
20 dashes Angostura bitters
1 cup ice, plus more for serving
Lime wedges
Combine the rum, port, lime juice, simple syrup, and bitters in a large pitcher. Add the cup of ice, then stir vigorously. Strain into ice-filled old-fashioned or small wine glasses. Garnish with lime wedge. Serves 8.
The Art of Wine + Soda
Since we’ve discussed sangria, we should also talk about the kinds of casual wine-plus-soda cocktails that people in Spain actually drink. I have praised this kind of lazy bartending before. But In Spain, they take it to another level.
These wine-plus-soda cocktails are all ridiculously simple to make, but they also give a template for creating drinks that could potentially (maybe?) be (slightly?) more creative and complex. In an effort to make them a little more classy, I’m tapping my old friend Oscar Díez, a Spanish winemaker and bartender, to add his take on the classic wine-plus-soda cocktails.
Oscar is based in Toro, a small town in Castilla y León, where his winery Bodegas Díez Gómez produces tempranillo and verdejo (I particularly like his barrel-fermented verdejo). Before took over his family’s vineyards, though, Oscar ran a bar called Discoteca Q in Toro (which at that time was a town of 10,000 with 100 bars!) and won numerous bartending awards, including one for “Best Gin Tonic in Spain,” noteworthy in a country that has elevated this drink to an art form.
Even as a winemaker, Oscar is committed to what he calls “Wine Mixology,” using wine in building cocktails. Each of his wines actually has a cocktail recipe on the label. When I saw him in May at a wine fair, Oscar was mixing up a variation on a mojito with verdejo wine, and a crazy cocktail made with gin, raspberry syrup, lime juice, his big Tinta de Toro (aka tempranillo), garnished with a sprig of rosemary. What follows here are Oscar’s twists on three classic wine-plus-soda cocktails.
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