Here at the Feast of Fools we have a whole slew of fabulous sangria recipes waiting for you for the month of June.

To start things off right, we’ve invited the fabulous Alpana Singh, author of “Alpana Pours” a fun book about wine and relationships. Check out the podcast we did with her here.

Alpana recommends you try mixing things up and adding your own fruits and juices to make your sangria just the way you like it. For example, I prefer mine with a little more lemon and rum.

In a punchbowl mix:
• One full 750 ml bottle of red wine. For an authentic taste, use a Spanish Red Rioja. Save the good stuff for drinking, use the more inexpensive wines for mixing into sangria.
• One cup of fresh squeezed orange juice (to taste)
• One organic fuji apple diced. (about two cups diced)
• One organic bartlet pear (one cup diced)
• One cup of pitted cherries.
• 1/4 cup of unprocessed raw sugar
• 2 teaspoons of lemon or lime juice
• A couple of cinnamon sticks

Pick bright colorful fruits to make the sangria come alive. If you want to prepare it ahead for your party, now is a good time to let the mixture sit in your fridge.

Just before serving mix in:
• 2 cups of lemon-lime soda (if you want a drier Sangria use carbonated water)
• 1/3 cup of gold rum
• 1/3 cup of grand marnier
• ice to serve

I was pleasantly suprised that the rum was much more “authentic” tasting than the brandy, which is traditionally used in Spain.

Sangria needs to be sweet because people want to taste that sweetness and balance out the acid from the wine and fruit juices. Just like a marriage, you need a little sweet to balance out the acid.
Grarnish with sliced orange wheels (I added some apple slices soaked in lemon juice) serve out in the patio and enjoy with friends.