My favorite ‘cocktail’ has to be sangria. It is refreshing, in fact it’s so refreshing you might find yourself gulping it rather then sipping it, oops, my bad. It’s also easy, quick and cheap to make. And I have found that everyone likes it, so it totally impresses guests.

I always have ingredients on hand to make sangria. The thing is, there isn’t one standard recipe for sangria. You can change up the wine, fruit or alcohol to meet your taste preferences. So it is fairly easy to always have the ingredients on hand, since I basically just use whatever I can find. I made this particular batch on a nice Friday night, it was sunny and warm. We had some friends over and enjoyed our refreshing drink and some chocolate. Pretty much that makes for the perfect night :)

Serves 4-ish
1 bottle red wine (I used a cabernet)
1/2 cup rum (I used white rum)
1/2 cup sugar
12 ounces sparkling water
2 limes
2 lemons
2 oranges
1 cup sliced strawberries

Slice all the fruit ad add it to a pitcher, dump sugar over the fruit.

Add the wine and rum to the pitcher. Mix all the ingredients until the sugar dissolves. Refrigerate at least 4 hours before serving.
*If you don’t have time to refrigerate it, no worries. This step just lets the fruit absorb the wine and lets the fruit flavor the wine. It’s a 2-fer.

When you are ready to serve it, add the sparkling water to the pitcher and pour over ice.