Last night, my friend Ern came over for dinner, and I made fried plantains, Caribbean rice and shrimp (I love me some Zatarian's Rice Dinner mixes), and sangria. Lots of sangria. People often ask me how I make my sangria, and I'm reluctant to tell them, not because it's some Secret Recipe (did you ever have someone flat out refuse to give you a recipe for something? It's only happened to me once. I ate a delicious carrot cake at a party, and when I asked the girl who made it for the recipe, she said "It's a secret family recipe and I don't give it out." I gave her my best "Are you fucking kidding me?" face, but, alas, she wasn't joking. Then I gave her my "This isn't the 1950's anymore, when housewives apparently competed for social status based upon their baking prowess, leading to the so-called Secret Recipe phenomenon, so just give me the damn recipe" face, but that one didn't work either.) I don't like to tell people how I make sangria because, like snowflakes, no two batches are exactly the same. The recipe was created several years ago, at a dinner party when the Davidson sisters and I decided to whip up a batch of sangria and hunted around the kitchen to find potential ingredients. It came out delish, and I've attempted to recreate the original Mystery Sangria using the following guidelines:
1/2 bottle red wine (cheap is fine, but NO MERLOT. I'm not making a Sideways joke; I really don't like merlot.)
1 cup orange juice
1/2 cup cranberry juice
1/2 cup lemon or lime seltzer water
1/4 cup rum (preferably Flor De Cana, but Bacardi gold or Captain Morgan's will also suffice)
2 tbsp. powdered lemonade mix
sliced apple, lime, and orange
Makes one pitcher. Stir and add more or less of any ingredient according to taste. Serve over ice.
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