Every so often, as the song goes, I like to drink my liquor from an old fruit jar, so I mixed a batch of sangria in two Ball Half-Gallon Wide Mouth Mason Jars I bought upstairs at Zabar’s a year ago for no good reason.
Sangria arose as a quick and cheap party punch so conventional wisdom dictates bottom-shelf jug wine and overripe fruit. The soft fruit I’ll allow, but even though I’d be watering down and sweetening up the wine, I didn’t want cheap-wine migraines so I chose Yellow Tail merlot, which is to me on the upper scale of mass-market wines.
Buying my ingredients, I wanted a peach but they’re not in season yet so I selected an orange, a pear and a red apple. The true secret to successful sangria is to let the fruit soak not in the wine mixture solely but beforehand in another liquor. Brandy works best because you can get it cheap and, like the wine, was grapes at one point in its life.
After chopping the fruit and soaking it, I mixed equal amounts into a half-and-half blend of the merlot and lemonade. Then I shook in a few teaspoons of caster (superfine) sugar. (A sugar tip I found online is if you don’t have superfine sugar, which dissolves much more smoothly and cleanly than the typical big-crystal stuff, you can grind down regular sugar in a coffee grinder or food processor.) I screwed tight the metal banded lids of the jars and shook vigorously to mix. Amusingly, prior to my blending, the wine sat haughtily atop the lemonade in a distinct layer as if it would have no relations with that tart mistress Minute Maid.
Because of the lemonade, I found after taste-testing I didn’t need to add any more of sugar, but I figured I could always add more later if the brew turned too tart. Very refreshing, served over plenty of ice.