Sangria is one of those drinks with a thousand variations. While normally the drink is a bit like a red wine fruit salad, this version is much more pared down. I actually came across it in the Wall Street Journal of all places. Now, sangria isn’t my typical type of drink. Red wine and citrus fruits both tend to do bad things to my teeth, so I generally avoid them in any real concentration. This version doesn’t help that, but but one night’s indulgence was certainly worth it.
1 bottle of red wine, preferably Spanish
juice of 6 limes
zest from peels of 2 limes
4 Tbs of sugar
Mix them all together in a pitcher with ice. Wait for it to cool down and either serve as is or through a strainer to remove the zest (depending on how chewy you like your wine).
We forget the ice part, and just chilled the bottle first which was the wrong move. The lime and wine are a little to aggressive that way, but the sugar mellows things out enough to make this an enjoyable drink. As a note, we had medium-small limes, and the proportions came out just fine. Finally, it’s probably easier to zest the two limes first and then juice them as the juicing process tends to tear up the peel.
I am dismayed by the absence of Lemon Fanta, which every Spanish teenager knows is an essential ingredient in authentic old-world sangria… 🙂
Betsy, this is like no sangria the Spaniards have ever seen. Crazy stuff. I would contest the term “simple,” as squeezing and zesting and marinating and straining a bunch of limes into wine is more complicated than just throwing all the fruit and Fanta and booze in a pitcher together.