White Sangria with Apples and Pisco

Photo by Shealah Craighead

This recipe is adapted from one we found on Food & Wine, it was by a guy named Adam Seger. The original recipe has you strain all the fruit out of the sangria before serving and then chop up fresh fruit to add back as a garnish. It also has you rim glasses with a cinnamon sugar mixture. When we tested the recipe, we included this step, and we strained the fruit out before pouring it into the glass. The result was elegant and addictive, everybody thought it was a fancy cocktail rather than sangria. For the wedding though, we ditched that step, left in the boozey fruit and just served it in a big bowl. Depending on your needs, both methods yield very good results.

Photo by Shealah Craighead

White Sangria with Apples and Pisco

• 1 750-ml bottle dry white wine, such as Chardonnay (but avoid over-oaked wines)
• 1 apple
• ⅓ cup peach schnapps
• ¼ cup Pisco (we also tried it with grappa with good results)
• ¼ cup honey
• 1 orange, quartered
• 1 lemon, quartered
• 1 lime, quartered
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 4 quarter-size slices of fresh ginger
• 3 cloves
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ice
• club soda

Peel, core and chop the apples. In a bowl, combine the wine, schnapps, Pisco and honey. Add the quartered orange, the lemon, lime, cinnamon sticks, the chopped apple, ginger and cloves and refrigerate at least 4 hours.

At this point, you can either do what we did at the wedding and just add some club soda and serve it as is, or you can fancy it up a bit: on a small plate, blend 2 tablespoons sugar and a half teaspoon sugar and cinnamon. Moisten the rims of wine glasses or cocktail glasses and dip in the cinnamon sugar to coat. Strain the fruit from the sangria, fill the glass ¾ full with sangria, top with club soda and add some freshly chopped apple and orange as a garnish.