Watermelon Sangria

July 31st, 2011 by Lisa

Ok kids, it’s crunch time. I turn 31 in just 23 days, so I am going to make a strong effort to finish up with my 30-while-30 list before the official deadline. I actually have made a bunch of items off of it, but just haven’t gotten around to blogging about them yet. Get set for some rapid fire blog posts.

I love all kinds of Sangria, but I realized last summer when constructing my 30-while-30 list that I had never made it! Weird. Anyway, I figured that this summer I would have to go ahead and take the Sangria plunge. I was particularly excited about giving a white wine Sangria a try as I figured it would look very pretty in a nice wine glass sitting on our porch. I meant for this to be a July 4th post, as my concoction was very red, white & blue given the ingredients, but…well, that’s how summer goes I guess! You can make it any day, really – it was that delicious.

I made a number of modifications to this recipe – first, I was assembling this drink down on the Jersey shore at my in-laws summer condo, and all of my kitchen appliances were not on hand – so adding pureed and strained watermelon was out of the question. I just added cubed melon and it was great. Also, sangria, turns out, typically calls for fortification with hard alcohol; I personally think my wine contains just enough ethanol as it is for a summer-time drink, especially on a hot day, and opted not to add any other liquors. I think it came out great. If you do try adding something stronger, I would recommend something like triple sec or a fruit-infused drink of some sort. I also do not like carbonated drinks; some people would argue for adding a seltzer or tonic to sangria, but again this was not really up my alley. The long and short of sangria is – it’s the fruit punch made with wine, so add whatever tickles your fancy, and enjoy!